Abdullah reminds workers of benefits from PP gov't incliding scrapping of smelter and TTRA

David Abdullah has told workers the labour movement should be grateful for what the People's Partnership government has done for labour since taking office on May 26, 2010.

Abdullah, who is President of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Non-Governmental Organisations (Fitun), is also a government senator.

He made the statement in San Fernando at a weekend "Total Local" food fair.

Abdullah said, “The unions were under attack much more than they think they are now because thousands of workers were going to be retrenched and so on...There was the threat of decentralisation hanging over the heads of Communications Workers Union and the Transport and Industrial Workers Trade Union.”

He added that in 2010, a number of “court actions, injunctions under Section 65, had been taken out against a number of unions to stop industrial actions and we could go on and on, the list is very long.”

He when the government changed one of the first things the new administration did was to cancel plans for the T&T Revenue Authority, which labour and FITUN had fought for. “In 12 short months, there has been significant change, not everything of course that we would like, but there has been significant change,” Abdulah said.

“The threat to job security of oil workers, it no longer exists, the Revenue Authority—the RATT— was going to see 2,000 workers in Customs and BIR (Board of Inland Revenue) sent home, that is off...There was going to be a smelter in La Brea, that is off the agenda.”

Adbdullah said Fitun, Abdulah and its member unions “played a very crucial role in bringing about those changes and that is something we can justifiable feel proud about.” It was that work, Abdulah said, which “resulted in the changes that took place first of all on the 24th May and changes that happened subsequently, as incremental and small as they may seem to some people.”