President of the Amalgamated Workers’ Union Michael Prentice wants apologies from the leaders of the National Trade Union Centre (NATUC) and Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM).
Prentice, the first union leader to accept the Chief Personnel Officer’s (CPO) four per cent wage offer last year, said he was criticised by his trade union colleagues and blacklisted in the labour movement. However, since then other unions have settled with the CPO, including the T&T Defence Force (TTDF), police, prison and fire services.
“One of the things that I would be demanding when it is all said and done is a public apology from every one of those trade union leaders,” Prentice said.
“The reality of the matter is that this trade union is an independent institution and is not run by JTUM or NATUC. While we are affiliated with a body, we are an independent body of people and we have acted in the best interests of the workers of the Port-of-Spain Corporation. What has happened to all of these trade unions at this time, in my mind, is that they have played too much politics. They have failed to recognise that this country, Trinidad and Tobago, has given so much to us.”
Prentice added: “I have people who even went as far as asking me what inducement I received. Well, I would have never asked them what inducement they got even in the face of fire.”
He said members of his union “can hold our heads up high, we can go to Fyzabad, we can go anywhere and feel happy and proud of ourselves because we know we have acted in the correct and best interests of Trinidad and Tobago and it wasn’t about individualism.”
“Too many times we criticise politicians for making decisions that go against our expectations,” he said.