Al­low me to start by ask­ing the ques­tion us­ing the word “we” for the ab­solute fact that there are over ten unions un­der an um­brel­la body of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) and we are all some­what silent. The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is wrestling with the deaf­en­ing si­lence, but we have cho­sen to speak, in­de­pen­dent­ly and open­ly, as sup­port­ed by our mem­ber­ship and ex­ec­u­tive. Labour can­not af­ford si­lence while job loss spreads and fam­i­lies feel the shock in their cup­boards, their com­mu­ni­ties, and even­tu­al­ly our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Trade unions were not born as “qui­et stake­hold­ers.” We were born as ac­tivists pre­cise­ly be­cause work­ing peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the voice­less, the down­trod­den and the op­pressed, of­ten have the least ac­cess to pow­er, the least pro­tec­tion from ar­bi­trary de­ci­sions, and the most to lose when em­ploy­ment dis­ap­pears. Is this what we are seen as to­day?

Cur­rent­ly, T&T is again con­fronting job anx­i­ety in mul­ti­ple forms: pub­lic-pro­gramme con­trac­tion, pri­vate un­cer­tain­ty, and a labour mar­ket where par­tic­i­pa­tion and job qual­i­ty are un­der strain. Even when head­line un­em­ploy­ment looks “man­age­able,” it can mask deep­er dis­tress with with­draw­al from the labour force and shrink­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties. Re­cent re­port­ing and of­fi­cial da­ta point to up­ward un­em­ploy­ment move­ment.

Is “si­lence” crit­i­cal or is it a cri­sis for the move­ment?

When labour is mut­ed dur­ing a wave of job loss­es, the pub­lic reads that qui­et as ei­ther: fear, frag­men­ta­tion, par­ti­san al­liance and/or ir­rel­e­vance. Those per­cep­tions are grave­ly dan­ger­ous. It weak­ens col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pow­er, re­duces pub­lic sym­pa­thy, and in­vites pol­i­cy­mak­ers and em­ploy­ers to treat job loss as an ad­min­is­tra­tive event in­stead of a so­cial emer­gency.

Trade union­ism’s moral claim has al­ways been big­ger than any sin­gle bar­gain­ing unit, as we say a work­er af­fect­ed any­where will be de­fend­ed and rep­re­sent­ed by work­ers every­where. We have ceased from act­ing like that is true, there­fore cre­at­ing sub­tle doubt in the minds of those we rep­re­sent. Our his­to­ry proves the move­ment’s pur­pose of or­gan­ised re­sis­tance

T&T’s labour move­ment was forged in strug­gle not cer­e­mo­ny. Be­tween 1934 and 1937, work­ers pushed back through strikes and ri­ots across plan­ta­tions and oil­fields, and by Sep­tem­ber 1937 the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union emerged as a land­mark in reg­is­tered trade union­ism. That era es­tab­lished a per­ma­nent les­son; when work­ers face ex­ploita­tion, col­lec­tive ac­tion is the en­gine of re­form.

His­to­ry has shown us, that is why the names we call mat­ter to us so much.

Adri­an “Co­la” Rien­zi was an in­sti­tu­tion-builder and de­fend­er of the work­er.

Rien­zi helped or­gan­ise and give struc­ture to work­er pow­er in the 1930s, shap­ing mod­ern trade union­ism and the po­lit­i­cal ad­vo­ca­cy that fol­lowed. His work re­minds us that move­ments don’t sur­vive on emo­tion alone, they sur­vive on or­gan­i­sa­tion, dis­ci­pline, and clear pub­lic de­mands.

George Weekes ex­ud­ed courage, con­scious­ness, and work­ing-class con­fi­dence. Weekes is re­mem­bered for up­lift­ing work­ers ma­te­ri­al­ly and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly—build­ing the con­fi­dence that work­ing peo­ple de­serve mod­ern dig­ni­ty and must hold pow­er in so­ci­ety. His lega­cy is a di­rect re­buke to pas­siv­i­ty: labour must ed­u­cate, mo­bilise, and con­front.

Our very own stal­wart com­rade Lyle Townsend dis­played mil­i­tant sol­i­dar­i­ty and a “dare to strug­gle” at­ti­tude. Townsend’s in­flu­ence is tied to a tra­di­tion of labour sol­i­dar­i­ty and ac­tivism - “Dare to Strug­gle, Dare to Win” and to build­ing work­er con­fi­dence through prin­ci­pled rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

These lead­ers, or may I say “our lead­ers,” did not wait for per­mis­sion to speak. They un­der­stood that work­er pro­tec­tion is not a gift from above; it is tak­en, de­fend­ed, and re­newed.

Job loss, so­cial col­lapse, the crime-un­em­ploy­ment link, and a so­ci­ety that nor­malis­es job loss and un­der­em­ploy­ment cre­ate the con­di­tions for so­cial frac­ture, while house­holds fall be­hind, young peo­ple see few­er le­git­i­mate path­ways, com­mu­ni­ties lose sta­bil­i­ty, and in­for­mal and il­le­gal economies grow. This is not ab­stract or far-fetched. An­a­lysts have warned that job dis­lo­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly among vul­ner­a­ble groups, hits com­mu­ni­ties first: small busi­ness­es, ven­dors, trans­port work­ers, and strug­gling house­holds. When “we” as labour unions stay qui­et in that mo­ment, the vac­u­um gets filled by de­spair and de­spair is fer­tile ground for crime.

CWU warns that si­lence does not “keep the peace.” Si­lence moves the bur­den on­to the work­er and the com­mu­ni­ty, un­til the na­tion­al cost be­comes un­avoid­able. We be­lieve that the time has come for a con­struc­tive in­dict­ment by which labour must act now, not as a call to reck­less con­fronta­tion. It is a call to rel­e­vance through re­spon­si­bil­i­ty:

Speak as one labour move­ment on job loss, not as scat­tered unions guard­ing sep­a­rate cor­ners. We should de­mand a na­tion­al em­ploy­ment re­sponse: re­train­ing tied to re­al va­can­cies, in­come pro­tec­tion where ter­mi­na­tion is abrupt, and trans­par­ent cri­te­ria for con­tract can­cel­la­tions and work­force re­duc­tions.

We need to go back to the days of de­fend­ing the un­or­gan­ised and pre­car­i­ous work­er (URP/CEPEP-type vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, short-term con­tracts, out­sourced labour), be­cause that is where ex­ploita­tion ex­pands first.

Re­vive pub­lic mo­bil­i­sa­tion: work­er ed­u­ca­tion fo­rums, joint union press brief­in­gs, co­or­di­nat­ed days of ac­tion, and sus­tained ad­vo­ca­cy, not one-off state­ments.

CWU’s plea: “Let us re­vive the creed that built us.” It is time for the trade union move­ment to re-cen­tre the prin­ci­ple: “A work­er af­fect­ed any­where will be de­fend­ed and rep­re­sent­ed by work­ers every­where.” As Arch­bish­op Desmond Tu­tu warned: neu­tral­i­ty in in­jus­tice sides with the op­pres­sor. And as Dr Mar­tin Luther King Jr cau­tioned, “There comes a time when si­lence is be­tray­al.”

Howard Zinn put the labour-mind­ed truth plain­ly: “You can’t be neu­tral on a mov­ing train.”

Rien­zi or­gan­ised.

Weekes up­lift­ed and mo­bilised.

Townsend hard­ened sol­i­dar­i­ty in­to ac­tion.

They fought for what we have to­day be­cause they un­der­stood a per­ma­nent law of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, so let the move­ment speak again to­geth­er, pub­licly, and with­out apol­o­gy, un­til job se­cu­ri­ty, dig­ni­ty at work, and na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty are treat­ed as non-ne­go­tiable.