With an al­leged 20,000 pub­lic sec­tor work­ers dis­missed since the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as­sumed of­fice, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has called on non­govern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs) to unite with his par­ty to con­front what he de­scribes as es­ca­lat­ing so­cial in­jus­tice.

Speak­ing at a pub­lic meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas on Sat­ur­day evening, Gon­za­les said the dis­missal of CEPEP and Forestry Di­vi­sion work­ers—many la­belled as PNM sup­port­ers—was not mere­ly a po­lit­i­cal bat­tle, but a na­tion­al one. He urged NGOs to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty, stress­ing that the 20,000 af­fect­ed work­ers in­clude cit­i­zens from “PNM, UNC, church, mosque, tem­ples, NGOs and oth­er groups.”

He cit­ed the In­dus­tri­al Court’s $4.3 mil­lion award to 13 for­mer To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly work­ers whose con­tracts were ter­mi­nat­ed af­ter the 2022 change of ad­min­is­tra­tion, warn­ing the Gov­ern­ment faces mount­ing le­gal penal­ties.