Joanne Ogeer

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al - CWU

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is du­ty bound to re­spond to Min­is­ter Clyde El­der’s re­cent opin­ion/ex­pla­na­tion on the award of 10 per cent to the PSA and on TSTT not be­ing part of the statu­to­ry bod­ies etc. The CWU has nev­er been part of any of­fer of four per cent “con­ver­sa­tion,” set­ting the record straight. We al­so com­mend the PSA pres­i­dent for this vic­to­ry. The union’s po­si­tion is not about what you say but how you say it.

It’s a shame to think that once you are not part of the Coali­tion of In­ter­est, you are la­belled “PNM and you have sold out or do not have good lead­er­ship skills.”

The PSA wait­ed and they were re­ward­ed; that is a fact. How­ev­er, what was the rel­e­vance in go­ing to the length and breadth to ex­plain, and even clar­i­fy and in­tro­duce the “par­ti­san al­liance?” Was that the fo­cus to re­al­ly speak about col­lec­tive­ly?

Be­ing once a fierce ad­vo­cate in the CWU, Min­is­ter El­der spoke up about nepo­tism, wan­ton wastage, fraud and cor­rup­tion, work­ers be­ing dis­ad­van­taged while the up­per ech­e­lons “eat ah food off bonus­es, ex­pen­sive trav­el etc and cut­backs.”

The CWU mem­bers would have been more com­pas­sion­ate and kind to him had he said some­thing like, “Even though TSTT does not fall with­in the statu­to­ry bod­ies as out­lined by the Fi­nance Min­is­ter, the work­ers at TSTT are de­serv­ing of ten per cent and more, for the mere fact that the com­pa­ny has been suc­cess­ful­ly prof­itable and I wish both the com­pa­ny and the union suc­cess in these on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.” TSTT work­ers are work­ing on 2009 salaries from an agree­ment of five per cent for a six-year pe­ri­od. There­fore, TSTT work­ers are much de­serv­ing of more or equal to 10 per cent. It would have sig­nalled some mea­sure of sin­cere con­cern for the union he once led, rather than be­ing some­what dis­mis­sive about TSTT as a whole since he demit­ted of­fice and is now a politi­cian.

The re­al truth is that there is a huge di­vi­sion in the move­ment be­cause those who showed a lack of sup­port for be­ing a part of the Coali­tion of In­ter­est, as sup­port­ed by their gen­er­al coun­cils and ex­ec­u­tive boards, are now be­ing tout­ed “PNM unions” and left out in the rain ... CWU is def­i­nite­ly one union on the re­ceiv­ing end, as there seems to be no in­ter­est in the line min­is­ter meet­ing with the union, no meet­ing with the chair­man since he con­firmed a meet­ing of Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025. We have seen meet­ings with Mr Arnold Ram and the OW­TU, etc, while TSTT cher­ry picks the at­ten­dees.

The CWU has al­ways been built on “truth, bread and strug­gle” and in­de­pen­dence has been our modus operan­di when it comes to pol­i­tics. We strong­ly ad­vo­cate the dan­ger of po­lit­i­cal-union align­ment and its im­pact on in­dus­tri­al peace and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

In this case, when a for­mer union leader who protest­ed against the ills of TSTT was wrong­ful­ly re­trenched by TSTT, who called for the au­dits in­to cor­rup­tion, called out nepo­tism, crony­ism and every­thing wrong, but now ap­pears to of­fer par­ti­san cov­er to the State, a se­ri­ous risk emerges: the politi­ci­sa­tion of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions. This pos­es mul­ti­ple dan­gers to the core prin­ci­ple on which the labour move­ment is built—free and fair col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

The emer­gence of a clear and present dis­tor­tion of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing be­gins. Col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing re­lies on in­de­pen­dence, trans­paren­cy, and the free­dom to ne­go­ti­ate with­out co­er­cion or un­due in­flu­ence.

When po­lit­i­cal ac­tors ap­pear aligned with labour ac­tors, many things start to spi­ral, in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to ne­go­ti­a­tions that can be in­flu­enced by po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty rather than mer­it or work­ers’ rights and out­comes be­com­ing com­pro­mised to suit elec­toral agen­das rather than the col­lec­tive will of work­ers.

This cre­ates a pow­er im­bal­ance, where the gov­ern­ment holds lever­age through po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty, rather than ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al labour stan­dards.

Fur­ther and/or al­ter­na­tive­ly, in­dus­tri­al peace can be ar­ti­fi­cial or ma­nip­u­lat­ed.

In­dus­tri­al peace is not sim­ply the ab­sence of strikes—true in­dus­tri­al peace is the pres­ence of fair­ness and work­ers’ trust. Po­lit­i­cal align­ment in­tro­duces a risk of peace by si­lence rather than by jus­tice. This we are see­ing with­in the move­ment due to po­lit­i­cal al­liance and coali­tion, but of “whose in­ter­ests?”

Unions are now with­hold­ing protest or in­dus­tri­al ac­tion for po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience. Gov­ern­ment is us­ing union lead­ers as me­di­a­tors of pub­lic sen­ti­ment, not as de­fend­ers of work­er in­ter­ests.

This com­pro­mis­es the union’s role as a coun­ter­weight to state pow­er, which we are see­ing now. We are see­ing the loss of work­er con­fi­dence and union le­git­i­ma­cy. Work­ers are quick­ly los­ing faith when they per­ceive that their union has been co-opt­ed by the State, is serv­ing par­ti­san rather than labour in­ter­ests and is al­low­ing po­lit­i­cal agen­das to su­per­sede work­er wel­fare.

This erodes union strength, mem­ber par­tic­i­pa­tion, and col­lec­tive sol­i­dar­i­ty. It al­so fu­els in­ter­nal di­vi­sions, com­pet­ing fac­tions, and work­er dis­il­lu­sion­ment. Quite crit­i­cal­ly, in­de­pen­dent trade unions like the CWU are one of the key checks on State and em­ploy­er pow­er and en­sur­ing there is no weak­en­ing of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ac­count­abil­i­ty. When unions and gov­ern­ment be­come too aligned, ac­count­abil­i­ty is blurred, crit­i­cism be­comes mut­ed, and pub­lic pol­i­cy is shaped with­out work­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

It un­der­mines the foun­da­tion­al de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ple that gov­ern­ment pow­er must be con­front­ed—not es­cort­ed—by or­gan­ised labour.

Have we turned a blind eye to the his­tor­i­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al prece­dent?

Across the world, once unions be­come ab­sorbed in­to po­lit­i­cal ma­chin­ery, three out­comes fol­low:

1. Work­ers lose rep­re­sen­ta­tion,

2. Col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing be­comes cer­e­mo­ni­al,

3. In­dus­tri­al con­flict even­tu­al­ly resur­faces in more se­vere and un­pre­dictable ways.

So, iron­i­cal­ly, po­lit­i­cal align­ment does not se­cure in­dus­tri­al peace—it de­stroys the mech­a­nisms that sus­tain it.

For­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al El­der once raged with pas­sion about in­jus­tice and agreed to a set­tle­ment of five per cent for six years for TSTT. With TSTT hav­ing re­alised prof­its, etc, is he now say­ing in­di­rect­ly that TSTT work­ers do not de­serve 10 per cent as a whole, or is he say­ing unions who did not form part of the coali­tion will be dis­ad­van­taged?

CWU ex­ec­u­tive board po­si­tion

The labour move­ment’s le­git­i­ma­cy comes from its in­de­pen­dence. When po­lit­i­cal al­liances be­gin to over­lap with union in­ter­ests, it cre­ates an at­tempt to now muz­zle apo­lit­i­cal unions.

In­dus­tri­al peace can­not be built on po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience or par­ti­san col­lab­o­ra­tion. It must be built on eq­ui­ty, in­de­pen­dence, trans­paren­cy, and labour jus­tice.

Can we tru­ly con­tin­ue to be­lieve in “when those who labour hold the reins of pow­er” en­ter the shal­low halls of par­lia­ment, labour will re­main rel­e­vant to the ideals they once stood for? There­fore, the ques­tion begs: are the ut­ter­ances of Min­is­ter El­der those of the Gov­ern­ment, or was that his per­son­al view?

The JTUM pres­i­dent has al­so vowed to wage a “war” on any­one who at­tacks the Gov­ern­ment, Min­is­ters El­der and Ke­sar and he will lead a charge. I urge my fel­low pres­i­dent gen­er­al, re­spect­ful­ly, not to be too quick to be re­ferred to as an “Em­per­or who has no clothes.”

Si­lenc­ing peo­ple for their free­dom of speech on any mat­ter is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and dra­con­ian. CWU will not be muz­zled.

A word to the wise is suf­fi­cient.