A bright Fri­day in Fyz­abad laid bare deep di­vi­sions with­in the labour move­ment as thou­sands of work­ers marched from Av­o­cat Junc­tion to Char­lie King Junc­tion, with mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) boo­ing one union leader while oth­ers ap­plaud­ed, amid mount­ing frus­tra­tion over de­layed wage pay­ments and dif­fer­ing ap­proach­es to Gov­ern­ment en­gage­ment.

At the cen­tre of the ten­sion was TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Bevin Ashe, who used his ad­dress at Av­o­cat Junc­tion to re­new pres­sure over out­stand­ing salary in­creas­es and retroac­tive pay­ments un­der the April 2025 col­lec­tive agree­ment, say­ing ed­u­ca­tors are still wait­ing more than a year af­ter the deal was signed.

“Ed­u­ca­tors signed a col­lec­tive agree­ment in April 2025 and yet 14 months lat­er, we are still wait­ing on our monies,” Ashe said.