Roget threatens mass action against PP government, call on workers to support move

A section of the Labour Day crowd in Fyzabad. Newsday Photo

The president general of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) issued an ultimatum to the People’s Partnership Government on Tuesday and repeated his threat to bring down the government. 

In his Labour Day speech in Fyzabad Ancel Roget said he wants all the demands made by the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) met by September or risk reprisals from workers.

The MSJ had listed 10 demands it wanted fulfilled by May 24 and when it announced its decision on Sunday to leave the partnership it said it was not satisfied that the government was serious about making the changes.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar called the demands "impossible, unreasonable and reckless".

The 10 issues as outlined by the MSJ earlier in the year:

• Settlement of negotiations in a fair and equitable manner consistent with the free collective bargaining process
• Fair share of State resources to communities and the equitable distribution of jobs
• Reduced rights of land tenure and massive increase of lease rates to farmers without consultation
• Governance: process of constitution reform and local government reform, addressing state sector governance, cutting all forms of discrimination, political victimisation, corruption, nepotism and patronage
• Getting rid of the odious system of contract labour in the public service and state sectors
• Privatisation, especially of Petrotrin (Trinmar’s acreage) and First Citizens
• Advancing the agenda of Labour Law reform
• The protection of the livelihoods of fisherfolk
• Implementing the cultural sector agenda, as committed to in the manifesto
• Establishing a policy position so as to stop the use of force by the Police Service to frustrate, intimidate and stop the legitimate and peaceful activities of civil society, including peaceful protest action by workers and the rights of the media 

Roget said he wants ALL outstanding negotiations settled by September and threatened that the Joint Trade Union Movement would head to Port-of-Spain on September 7 for a mass anti-government gathering. He called on all workers to support the action.

"We call on all workers, social and community groups, political organisations, NGOs, our unemployed brothers and sisters, students and youth, all decent and patriotic citizens—all of us who want a different and better Trinidad and Tobago—to join with the trade union movement on 7 September in Port of Spain,” Roget said.

“Let us give support for a People’s Agenda as we take Labour Day to the streets of Port-of-Spain.” He added, "We have shown our own power in the streets...We must now intensify that action and match it with the support for our own political vehicle—the MSJ,” Roget said.

“There is no question about it, all the traditional political parties have failed us. “We cannot remain with this old system of governance...We can only change the course of the future with the right choice of vehicle. “MSJ is that vehicle for a new Trinidad and Tobago.”

Roget accused the government of a betrayal. “They broke the social contract with the people of Trinidad and Tobago, when they broke the manifesto promise of putting workers at the centre of our country’s development,” he said. “We are against this Government because they are against workers.”