AFTER a contentious decade under the Dr Keith Rowley administration, described by some labour leaders as the most anti-worker, the election of two labour representatives into the Kamla Persad-Bissessar-led government, is being seen as a beacon of hope by the trade union movement.
Former president of the Public Services Association (PSA) Leroy Baptiste was also sworn in as Labour Minister on May 3, making him the second leader of a trade union under a UNC led Government to hold this position.
Errol Mc Leod, former president general of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), was the first. He served in the People’s Partnership 2010 to 2015 government. His predecessor, George Weekes, would have served as a senator with the United Labour Front.
“I think this is an opportunity for us to advance the workers agenda,” current OWTU’s president general Ancel Roget told Newsday during May Day celebrations in San Fernando, on May 1.
“We represent the interest of the working class, the unemployed man on the street, those without a voice. There was an opportunity to sit at the table and advance that interest and we grabbed the opportunity.”
Sticking to its mantra that to effect change one must hold political power, Roget as leader of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) said the election result was the culmination of an arrangement with the UNC which started two years ago to form a coalition of interests (COI).
This COI, he said, was to advance the workers agenda and remove the PNM from office.
“We took a position last Labour Day (2024). Two years ago, (2023) on Labour Day we moved a no-confidence motion in the PNM and all that would have led to a build-up of what occurred now.
“We consistently campaigned against the tyranny and efforts to decimate the trade union. They had to be stopped and the only way to stop them was to vote them out of office.”
In this coalition, trade unionists Ernesto Kesar and Clyde Elder, of the OWTU and Communications Workers Trade Union, respectively, offered themselves for election under the UNC banner.
They contested the Point Fortin and La Brea seats which had not changed political affiliation from the PNM since 1986, with Persad-Bissessar promising the reopening of the Petrotrin refinery, wage negotiations starting at 10 per cent, the creation of jobs, and an increase in oil and gas production.
Their election, said David Abdulah, honourary member of the OWTU and leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), was significant and must be seen as a rebellion against Rowley and the PNM who accepted a 47 per cent salary increase, but gave public sector workers four per cent.
Roget said the policies of the last administration and the dictatorial personalities of its leaders, represented a diametrically opposed view to the interest they represented.
“Their trickle-down policy was designed to make the rich get richer and hoping that some of their crumbs would fall from their tables to the poor.
“We do not subscribe to those policies.”
Roget, recalling what he described
