JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Armed with plac­ards, pam­phlets, flags, ban­ners, blowhorns, snow cones and their voic­es, trade union mem­bers marched from Memo­r­i­al Park to Wood­ford Square in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, in a bid to pres­sure the Gov­ern­ment to con­clude long-stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

At the start of the march, Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette de­scribed the event as a “spir­i­tu­al.”

How­ev­er, as the pro­ces­sion moved along St Clair Av­enue and passed the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the at­mos­phere ap­peared to take on a more an­ti-gov­ern­ment tone.

Some par­tic­i­pants waved flags, sound­ed horns and chant­ed, “Kam­la must go,” while em­ploy­ees at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter looked on and record­ed the demon­stra­tion.

Po­lice of­fi­cers re­peat­ed­ly urged marchers to keep mov­ing as danc­ing and cel­e­bra­tions in­ten­si­fied out­side the build­ing.

Se­cu­ri­ty was high­ly vis­i­ble through­out the route, with at least five po­lice ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing a 26-seater truck car­ry­ing of­fi­cers in ri­ot gear, ac­com­pa­ny­ing the pro­ces­sion. Oth­er of­fi­cers marched among par­tic­i­pants or trav­elled along­side the mu­sic truck and at the front of the crowd.

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers were un­able to pro­vide an es­ti­mate of the crowd size up to press time.

Among the unions rep­re­sent­ed were the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU), Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­is­tered Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTR­NA), Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU), Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union (CG­WU) and the Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SWUTT).

No­tably ab­sent were the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), both mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

De­spite sharp crit­i­cism from the Gov­ern­ment be­fore and through­out the demon­stra­tion, union and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers al­so re­peat­ed­ly in­sist­ed the march was not po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

On Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly her sup­port­ers, to avoid the cap­i­tal dur­ing the protest, al­leg­ing that the 12 par­tic­i­pat­ing trade unions har­boured po­lit­i­cal and racial hos­til­i­ty to­wards her ad­min­is­tra­tion.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les re­ject­ed that claim yes­ter­day, say­ing the at­ten­dance of po­lit­i­cal fig­ures was not an at­tempt to score po­lit­i­cal points.

“The Prime Min­is­ter prob­a­bly has a short mem­o­ry that she has marched many times with trade unions. This here is about sol­i­dar­i­ty with the trade union move­ment. We know that there are is­sues. The Prime Min­is­ter may have set­tled some of her is­sues with some unions, but there are still unions where wages, salaries and is­sues re­lat­ing to the cost of liv­ing still arise. So I am not re­al­ly con­cerned about how she feels about it,” Beck­les said.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young echoed those sen­ti­ments, say­ing he at­tend­ed as a cit­i­zen sup­port­ing work­ers frus­trat­ed by pro­tract­ed wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day al­so dis­missed the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments, ac­cus­ing her of try­ing to politi­cise the demon­stra­tion.

“I don’t ex­pect the Prime Min­is­ter to say any­thing else. What else can she say? Do you ex­pect her to say this is a ral­ly of the peo­ple’s dis­en­chant­ment with how my Gov­ern­ment has been per­form­ing for over a year and a half? She’s not go­ing to say that. What I take um­brage with is bring­ing race in­to it,” Pan­day said.

The march, sched­uled to be­gin at 9 am, start­ed near­ly two hours late and took about two hours to reach Wood­ford Square, where union lead­ers ad­dressed sup­port­ers and com­plained about the slow pace of wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Along the route, par­tic­i­pants kept cool with wa­ter, snow cones, lol­lies and the oc­ca­sion­al beer.

Po­lit­i­cal lead­ers al­so stopped near Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, en­cour­ag­ing stu­dents ob­serv­ing the march to fo­cus on their ed­u­ca­tion be­fore en­ter­ing pol­i­tics.

At Wood­ford Square, union rep­re­sen­ta­tives re­newed calls for the Gov­ern­ment to ac­cel­er­ate wage talks and ad­dress work­ers’ con­cerns over salaries and the ris­ing cost of liv­ing.

PSA boss con­demns protest

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas yes­ter­day crit­i­cised the protest march, de­scrib­ing it as a be­tray­al of the work­ers the union lead­ers claimed to be rep­re­sent­ing.

“I will not walk with the very per­sons who caused the very work­ers they are pre­tend­ing to care about to re­main on 2013 salaries, de­stroyed the lives of thou­sands in Petrotrin and TSTT, and dis­tressed thou­sands of work­ers in BIR, Cus­toms, WASA and many more,” Thomas said in a What­sApp re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on her union’s de­ci­sion not to par­tic­i­pate in the protest march.

She added, “I can­not and will not pre­tend that the cur­rent state of this coun­try is not a di­rect re­sult of the poor gov­er­nance of the PNM and their lack of care for the peo­ple of this coun­try.”

De­spite the OW­TU’s ab­sence from the event as well, one shop stew­ard who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said he at­tend­ed in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty.

“I am a mem­ber of the OW­TU who is dis­pleased with the state of the coun­try. I am a mem­ber of the OW­TU who is dis­pleased with the lead­er­ship of the OW­TU. I rep­re­sent the OW­TU as a mem­ber, and I am mak­ing a stand,” he said.

He added, “My leader got one kiss from the Prime Min­is­ter and ap­par­ent­ly he took it for love. I ain’t get no love. I want love. I want love for the coun­try. One kiss can’t help me.”