Unions rally behind CWU as TSTT wage dispute escalates

“His­to­ry will not be kind to you, Min­is­ter Padarath.”

That was the warn­ing from Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer yes­ter­day, as union lead­ers from across the labour move­ment ral­lied be­hind the CWU in its es­ca­lat­ing dis­pute with the Gov­ern­ment over wages at ma­jor­i­ty state-owned TSTT.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence at the CWU’s Hen­ry Street head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain, lead­ers of sev­er­al trade unions pledged their sup­port for Ogeer and a planned march on Oc­to­ber 16. The dis­pute has in­ten­si­fied in re­cent weeks, with the CWU de­mand­ing a 10 per cent wage in­crease for TSTT work­ers. Padarath has in­sist­ed no such of­fer was made, dis­missed the union’s most re­cent protest as po­lit­i­cal the­atre and said the Gov­ern­ment would not be “bul­lied”.