RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Trade unions are ex­pect­ed to take to the streets to­day, but in a marked shift from re­cent years, the dom­i­nant mes­sage is like­ly to be one of cau­tious praise rather than out­right protest.

This year’s May Day march will be­gin in San Fer­nan­do, out­side the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) Para­mount head­quar­ters, be­fore pro­ceed­ing along Cof­fee Street and High Street and end­ing at Har­ris Prom­e­nade. Labour lead­ers, in­clud­ing Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get, are ex­pect­ed to ad­dress sup­port­ers.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Nurs­es’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art, who has been stag­ing protests ahead of May Day over the plight of re­gion­al health Au­thor­i­ty (RHA) work­ers still on 2013 salaries, said they will not par­tic­i­pate in this year’s march. He not­ed that RHA work­ers did not ben­e­fit from the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion’s 10 per cent wage in­crease and con­tin­ue to face ris­ing liv­ing costs due to high­er tax­es and rents.

“There is not much to cel­e­brate. There has been a mi­nor im­prove­ment in the Chil­dren’s Life Fund, and more au­ton­o­my has been giv­en to the Health Min­is­ter, with ad­di­tion­al ill­ness­es now cov­ered. But apart from that, health­care work­ers are still strug­gling, and it is no bet­ter for them this May Day than it was in pre­vi­ous years,” he said.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe said retroac­tive pay re­mains a ma­jor con­cern. He not­ed that schools con­tin­ue to face short­ages of fur­ni­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly in To­ba­go and San­gre Grande.

He added that school guid­ance of­fi­cers and so­cial work­ers are over­whelmed, with one of­fi­cer of­ten re­spon­si­ble for mul­ti­ple schools with­in a coun­ty.

Mean­while, Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for long-over­due mod­erni­sa­tion of labour laws. He de­scribed the pas­sage of the Re­trench­ment and Sev­er­ance Ben­e­fits Re­form Bill, 2026, as “a his­toric vic­to­ry for work­ers af­ter four decades of de­lay.”

An­nisette said the leg­is­la­tion cor­rects long-stand­ing in­jus­tices faced by re­trenched work­ers, who were of­ten left with in­ad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion and lim­it­ed pro­tec­tion. He added that the re­forms sig­nal “a de­ci­sive shift in favour of fair­ness, dig­ni­ty, so­cial jus­tice and eco­nom­ic se­cu­ri­ty.”

He dis­missed con­cerns from em­ploy­ers that stronger sev­er­ance pro­vi­sions could neg­a­tive­ly im­pact busi­ness, in­sist­ing that work­ers “are not dis­pos­able com­modi­ties” and should not bear the bur­den of cor­po­rate re­struc­tur­ing.

How­ev­er, de­spite the praise, he cau­tioned that fur­ther re­form is need­ed.

“The labour move­ment will strong­ly re­sist any at­tempt—whether through fu­ture amend­ment, ad­min­is­tra­tive de­lay, le­gal ma­nip­u­la­tion or em­ploy­er pres­sure—to di­lute, frus­trate or un­der­mine the im­ple­men­ta­tion of this leg­is­la­tion. We know too well the his­to­ry of labour re­form in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

He added, “NATUC will not per­mit this Re­form Bill to be­come an­oth­er pa­per vic­to­ry. We in­tend to mon­i­tor its im­ple­men­ta­tion close­ly, ed­u­cate work­ers on their new rights and hold em­ploy­ers ful­ly ac­count­able un­der the law. This is on­ly the be­gin­ning of labour law mod­erni­sa­tion.”

The Gov­ern­ment fea­tures sev­er­al fig­ures with strong trade union roots, in­clud­ing Clyde El­der, for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Trade Union; Ernesto Ke­sar, for­mer Trin­mar branch pres­i­dent of the OW­TU; and for­mer PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste, who now serves as Min­is­ter of Labour.