Who is popular today?

PRESIDENT General of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU) Ancel Roget said at the rapid rate workers are losing their jobs and businesses are closing down, “the only people who would be working in the near future are the 41 persons in the Parliament.
“Everybody else would be home,” he said on Friday at a virtual united rally organised by Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM), of which he is president.
The rally saw the coming together of some 21 leaders representing JTUM, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (Fitun) and the National Trade Union Centre (Natuc), collectively raising their voices on what they described as the suffering of the working class caused by the economic crisis, accelerated by the global pandemic.
Roget said this display of unity should put to rest the notion that the trade union movement is not relevant.
“We are alive and we are relevant.”
To those who argue that the movement is not relevant, he urged them to ask themselves, “Has exploitation gone away? Has injustice gone away? Are workers happy? Are workers employed?
“Once you have injustice there will always be a need for the trade union and its representatives.”
He argued that the country could have been in a better position than present, “if the powers that be had listened to the trade union movement and taken us on board. If they had done that we would have been in a better place in this pandemic.
“All of the issues that confront us did not did not start with the pandemic. What we are sure about is that employers, the capitalist class, business interest, those who stand resolutely against the interests that we represent, those who are against working class, they are seizing the moment to do what they wanted to do for quite a while."
He said the pandemic presents a "glorious opportunity" for their opponents "to continue to launch a vicious frontal attack against the working class.
“You witness it every day: the announcement of some sector closing down, some number of workers losing their jobs, going home, families displaced as a result of their breadwinners losing their job."
The results were: "a serious impact on community life, on the issue of crime, on the falling standard of living.”
Roget said while mass retrenchment is taking place, companies are closing down and resources are scarce, there may be opposition to the union’s quest for settlement of outstanding negotiations.
He said the union had written to Finance Minister Colm Imbert on several occasions, long before covid19, expressing concern and willingness and urgency to begin discussions.
At present, he said, some unions are entering two, three and four-year periods without a collective bargaining agreement, yet the government is silent in spite of letters and attempts to meet on this critical issue.
He said the unions’ position is united in that they are not now talking about a percentage or putting any money on the table just yet.
“We are talking about sitting down, having a respectable conversation, accepting the fact that these negotiations are outstanding and begin to work out a mechanism by which you will discharge that debt in some period of time.
“A debt is a debt and that debt must be repaid. Anything less than that is disrespect.
The post Roget: Unions uniting to fight injustice appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.