Commentary: Time for Abdullah to make up his mind about the PP

File: David Abdulah and Ancel Roget

(Originally published May 3, 2012)

There is a clear distinction between a member of the People’s Partnership and a member of a party within the partnership. But it seems to me that that is not clear to the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), which has been behaving as if it is the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ).

The MSJ is one of the five members of the People’s Partnership coalition that is the governing political group in Trinidad & Tobago. Its former leader, the man who committed the MSJ to the partnership, used to be the head of the OWTU.

So that alone could cause some of us to believe that when the OWTU speaks the MSJ speaks and if the OWTU is angry with the government all fall down for the partnership. But that is not so.

The fact of the matter is that the OWTU is just ONE of the groups that make up the MSJ and while it is most vocal in its anti-government stand it remains just a member of the MSJ and that must not be confused with who or what is the MSJ.

For a long time now the OWTU has been leading the charge against the Government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar with its President General Ancel Roget saying at every opportunity he gets that his mission is to bring down the government.

If you listen carefully to Roget he sounds so much like the opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) that you are likely to ask what is his official PNM title, and wonder where is his red shirt and a balisier tie (never mind Rowley doesn’t like the tie anymore but the real ‘PNM till ah ded’ types love their tie).

So when Roget and the OWTU issue an ultimatum to the People’s Partnership they are damn well boldface and out of place.

Roget and company are ready to leave, but leave WHAT?. They are saying on May 24 if they don’t get what they want they are leaving. Don’t take it from me. Here is what they are saying:

"At the stroke of midnight May 24th 2012 they (the government?) will not have the involvement of the OWTU in any dimension whatsoever. Our vehicle is ready to reverse, reverse like you never reverse before out of that nonsense and that charade they call the People's Partnership."

The OWTU is a little mixed up here. When Errol Mc Leod signed on to the partnership he didn’t do it as a former OWTU boss; he did it as the leader of a pressure group called the Movement for Social Justice, which was not even a political party. So when the time came for him to put his name on a ballot paper he put it next to the Rising Sun of the United National Congress (UNC).

MSJ the party came afterwards. And when Errol realized that his friends in the OWTU were behaving like bullies and thugs, trying to blackmail him and the government, he walked away and decided to focus on his real job as the minister of labour. So if you do the reality check, Roget and his OWTU boys are trying to bring down the government pretending that they are the MSJ.

So it is time for David Abdulah, the new MSJ leader, to show some leadership and tell Roget and the OWTU that they are members of the MSJ, just like the other labour groups and they do not speak for the MSJ.

But is David ready to do that?

He has a little bit of an identity problem. Sure he is a government senator, has stood on the platform with Kamla and the other leaders of the partnership and pledged the MSJ’s commitment and support. But when he goes home to the OWTU (he is the union’s general secretary) everybody begins to shout him down and tell him they want to get out of the partnership.

And David has some heavy baggage as well. He has always been the kind of guy to stand up and fight for the little guy. (After all, that’s why he gets the big bucks as a top dog in the OWTU).

SO when the OWTU decided to shut down Petrotrin he was right there waving the flag, ready to go to a battle that would have wreaked havoc on the national economy and hurt the government of which he and the MSJ are a part.

When Wayne Kublalsingh and his friends in Debe decided to block some bulldozers and stop work on the highway to Point Fortin he was there too. So David has a little problem, which can become a really big one.

A doctor will tell you David might be afflicted with a condition called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or multiple personality disorder, which manifests itself as the presence of “two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of behaviour”.

So sometimes he is a rabid trade unionist joining the OWTU chorus to denounce the government; then he is a fighter for the little guy; and then he is a Government Senator standing firm with the government that he will fight the next day as the leader of the MSJ (or is it that he too thinks the OWTU is the MSJ?)

The MSJ gave the government until May 24 to settle 10 issues or else it will walk away. That ultimatum has really come from Roget and the OWTU, which is why they feel that when they walk away on May 24 it is the MSJ that is walking away.

And that is why David has to cure his DID really fast. The smartest thing he could do now is to understand that his 10 demands are unreasonable and he and the other members of the partnership should sit down and make sense of the whole thing.

The Congress of the People and its leader Prakash Ramadhar have already painted themselves in a corner and can’t find a way out. And it looks like David and the MSJ are working hard to do the same thing. Talk about follow fashion!

Even a head honcho labour consultant like Robert Giuseppe knows that David and Roget and the rest of MSJ are making a mistake in threatening the partnership.

What does Giuseppe think? "I think that is a nonsensical way of looking for changes. You can't give a deadline on issues that are broad and so expansive. You can give a deadline in terms of at least saying let's sit down by that date and arrange a sort of accommodation where we can continue to develop as a real coalition."

He’s right. But perhaps the rabblerousers never wanted a resolution, just an excuse to try, like some of the COP members, to harm Kamla and the partnership and perhaps cause the government to fall.

What they didn’t count on was the strength of a lady who has always known what she wanted and still does. Kamla has been nice so far but she can also be brutal and surgical in dealing with cancers that threaten to hurt the body politic.

So if the OWTU wants to leave that is its business; it has nothing to do with the Partnership. The union is a member of the MSJ, which up to now remains a member of the partnership. 

But truth be told, David has to cure his DID soon and stop his diddling. And if he and the MSJ want to leave, well they are big boys so nobody has to hold their hands to tell them what is right or wrong.

Jai Parasram | Toronto – May 3, 2012.