The Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) has de­clined to say whether it sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to des­ig­nate 15 no-protest zones across Trinidad and To­ba­go, dis­tanc­ing it­self from a grow­ing dis­pute that has seen 13 trade unions threat­en le­gal ac­tion over the mea­sure.

The re­stric­tions, in­tro­duced dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SOE), have drawn crit­i­cism from a coali­tion of unions call­ing it­self the Pro­gres­sive In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions. The group has ar­gued that the des­ig­nat­ed zones could un­der­mine work­ers’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to protest and as­sem­ble.

How­ev­er, OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get stopped short of join­ing the crit­i­cism when ques­tioned by Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue.