THE EDITOR: Comments by trade union leaders in this small Third World country, struggling to become First World, may resonate negatively with citizens and hovering business investors.
David Abdulah, leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), is saddened by the fact that far too many workers do not belong to a trade union. Ancel Roget, president general of the OWTU, claims that if T&TEC workers are not treated exactly as they should be and given security and other apparatus, there may be dark days ahead for the country.
Roget says it is not an excuse to talk about stalled wage negotiations. I may look stupid, but am I really stupid?
Why is it that workers are not gravitating to unions? Forget about the rest of the world and the slump in trade unionism generally. Here in TT owners of businesses depend on profit margins. Potential investors would prefer not to do business in a country where the workers are encouraged to lay down their tools whenever their union leader wishes to up the ante.
Plus, of course, workers happy to be employed are well aware that unions cannot pay their salaries so they are not willing to join with anybody.
So we have rampant unemployment that is not only because of the government. And, as we say in local parlance, it must be "'fraid them investors 'fraid" of losing too much money in TT.
Dark days may be ahead if T&TEC workers are instructed to forget how to fix the lights. Throughout the covid19 pandemic every single public servant got salaries paid and not a single one of them got sent home.
Did anybody say thank you to the people whose lights might now get accidentally switched off?
It would appear that unions only care about salaries and not how the money for salaries must be obtained. Nothing is for free and nobody that I know has ever seen cheques and cash in envelopes falling from the sky.
Is this barely veiled threat to darken the country not just another addition to our crime statistics? No lights on so nobody can see who might have climbed over your fence.
LYNETTE JOSEPH
Diego Martin
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