OILFIELDS Workers' Trade Union (OWTU) president general Ancel Roget said on Saturday that workers, not the Government nor the Opposition, will rescue Trinidad and Tobago from the covid19 pandemic.

In making this declaration on Saturday at the grave of labour movement founder Tubal Uriah "Buzz" Butler at the Fyzabad Public Cemetery, Roget also reminded that the labour movement in TT is not dead.

Normally Labour Day celebrations include a wreath laying ceremony at Butler's grave, a marathon, procession of trade unions and their members to Charlie King Junction in Fyzabad and speeches by labour leaders at the venue. The latter three activities were stopped last year and this year owing to the pandemic.

For this Saturday and Sunday only, adjusted curfew times of 10am to 5am were imposed to further restrict people's movements and curb the spread of covid19.

Accompanied by a small group of labour representatives, all masked and well-spaced out, with police officers looking on nearby, Roget laid wreaths at Butler's grave site.

[caption id="attachment_895999" align="alignnone" width="1024"] An OWTU official making his way to the Fyzabad cemetery for the traditional Labour Day laying of the wreath laying on the grave of Chief Servant Tubal Uriah ‘Buzz’ Butler on Saturday. The traditional labour day march in Fyzabad was cancelled owing to the ongoing covid19 pandemic and curfew restrictions. -Photo by Angelo Marcelle[/caption]

"Today, 84 years later, the trade union movement is not dead. It is alive and this is testament that the trade union movement is alive."

"The curfew, SoE (state of emergency), the pandemic, will come to an end and it will come to an end because of the contribution of workers. Not Prime Minister, Opposition, Government, parliamentarians."

Roget said, "It is the workers who are here, there and everywhere as we speak, continuing to keep the wheels of the economy going." He said, "Were it not for workers, there is no TT." Roget praised the efforts of all frontline essential workers to "keep this country going."

He claimed the Government has used "every single measure and method to try to cut down, denigrate, get rid of the trade union movement. Roget said all those efforts will fail because "we will be ready to be back on the streets when all of this is over and it be over, I assure you."

He lamented that because of the pandemic "so many people today do not have the wherewithal to put food on the table because they are out of a job." Roget was concerned about more people losing jobs before the pandemic is over.

He said real leaders emerge and real leadership is displayed "when the challenge comes."

"That is not happening in the country." He described TT's leaders as "lifeguards who cannot swim...parade up and down the beach...strut up and down the beach...but when somebody begins to drown...they cannot rescue (them)...they cannot rescue TT."

Former Sheep and Goat Farmers Association president Shiraz Khan sa