Oilfield workers kept their heads down and allowed four of their colleagues to be abandoned in a pipe to their deaths.
Labour day today remembers a time when LET THOSE WHO LABOUR HOLD THE REINS was the clarion call to action. Today that fervor has been watered down to ‘they ain’t riot yet.’
We’re not the same people.
Any march or observances today by the union that allowed Petrotrin to be shut down and all, all, all workers fired is a slap in the face to the trade Union movement of Butler.
Race politics and corruption has removed the union’s power to represent those who pay their dues. Collective bargaining agreements have neutered mighty organisations and allowed the CPO to force 4% as the only offer to stick, despite the fact that the cost of living increased beyond thirty and some say fifty percent since the last increase.
Charlie King and Inspector Bradburn would be proud.
What’s the purpose of Labour Day today besides allowing some toothless bulldogs to bark and to threaten the direction of the vote of the membership?
Where in the representation agreement did the workers give the leadership so to do?
This labour day workers should use the holiday to reflect on what they’ve really gotten for all that loyalty.
We live in a time where the banks are running roughshod over their customers with impunity, exploiting depositors funds, paying practically no interest and charging usurious, exploitive fees. Foreign exchange and credit seem reserved for the fortunate, well connected few.
I interviewed a homeless man living in a cemetery yesterday who lost his home to the bank and now his pension is captured to cover the shortfall so he’s forced to sleep in a tomb.
Clever economics has used inflation and rapid cost of living increases to undo all benefits of any positions won by workers.
Profit sharing and equity remains off the table.
Non unionized ministers and Parliamentarians have had their salaries increased multiples of times over the same period.
Paid obfuscators are working overtime to convince voters that ALL political parties are the same as the PNM and UNC, but I want to use my Labour Day message to guarantee them that not only are we not the same as the others, the Progressive Empowerment Party would peg negotiations to inflation and cost of living increases over the period as a starting position, meaning they could never again lose ground or get less than they deserve.
The PEP refused alliances with other political parties and chose to join with the farming community instead. We extend an invitation to the energy workers, those in the public service and all other sectors to give us their vote as well.
Voting for the PEP in the LGE will force the other parties to bring respect back to the table. There is nothing as potent as a political horn to remind politicians who really hold the reins.
We are the party that marched with the ex Caroni workers to get them their long overdue VSEPs, and fought for the abandoned retrenched TSTT workers and got them what they deserved.
A PEP government would repeal the Sedition Act meant to keep workers in line and enshrine human rights into the Constitution, chief among those the rights to gather and protest and speak freely when injustice abounds.
If respect and fair treatment is what workers are truly after, if a better country for them and their loved ones is what they want, there will never be a better time, and there truly is no better option.
To save T&T, all of us are going to have to vote PEP.
Phillip Edward Alexander
Political Leader
Progressive Empowerment Party