Calls for uni­ty to res­cue T&T echoed through Fyz­abad as hun­dreds of trade union mem­bers and their fam­i­lies marched through Fyz­abad.

Ozzi War­wick, Chief Ed­u­ca­tion and Re­search Of­fi­cer of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union said the turnout was bet­ter than ex­pect­ed.

Com­menc­ing at 10.45 am, some 20 trade unions be­gan the march from Av­o­cat Junc­tion and as they pro­ceed­ed to Char­lie King Junc­tion, res­i­dents and spec­ta­tors along the route were urged to join the March.

Is­su­ing the in­vi­ta­tion over the speak­er sys­tem, the unions in­sist­ed the trade union move­ment is the on­ly so­lu­tion to the is­sues fac­ing work­ers and the coun­try.

War­wick said, "We have to res­cue our­selves. Our coun­try has de­scend­ed in­to a bar­bar­ic state." They urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to al­so join in their bat­tle to re­move the gov­ern­ment and fight for work­ers' rights.

One fi­nan­cial mem­ber of the In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union, Thier­ry Samp­son, told re­porters he was not hap­py by the rep­re­sen­ta­tion giv­en by the trade unions.

He said, "These union lead­ers are hyp­ocrites be­cause in­stead of they unite as one and come to­geth­er and make a stand against the gov­ern­ment, say some­thing like shut down or let we protest, let we make a stand against the gov­ern­ment, they don't do it. But they ma­m­aguy­ing the pub­lic and every­body com­ing to­geth­er here."

Shade de­scribed the turnout at to­day's march as poor. "I just want to high­light the is­sue that these union lead­ers not gen­uine. Look at how much peo­ple here. This is an em­bar­rass­ment. It sup­posed to have more peo­ple than that but the peo­ple re­al­iz­ing that the union lead­ers, they is sell out. They not for the work­ers. Why they don't come to­geth­er?"

A res­i­dent who gave her name as Ms Seep­er­sad was dis­ap­point­ed with the turnout. Seep­er­sad, who has been liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty for 39 years, said in the years gone by the num­bers were much more.

Led by a large con­tin­gent of po­lice of­fi­cers, the mem­bers marched un­der the theme "Peo­ple Pow­er, Peo­ple Mat­ter" to the rhythm of Fyz­abad Cadet Corps of T&T and mu­sic truck.

Al­so, among the trade union mem­bers, were the fam­i­ly and friends of the four dri­vers killed in the Paria tragedy on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022.