T&T voices send a message; NCIC’s Mangaroo stays

The rain came, and so did they. Per­sis­tent protest­ing, push­ing on through the light show­ers, Black Stal­in’s Suf­fer­ers pow­er­ing them on, one mes­sage on the col­lec­tive mind— im­prove­ment.

As To­ba­go pre­pared to let off steam with Car­ni­val, trade unions in yes­ter­day’s march in Trinidad did the same - 18 months and as­sort­ed ob­ser­va­tions, ex­pe­ri­ences and con­cerns lat­er, were un­furled. Out­side the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice on St Clair Boule­vard, mem­bers shout­ed the same slo­gans they had dur­ing protests in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment days “XYX hid­ing in the build­ing.” As the crowd lin­gered around the OPM, Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette urged par­tic­i­pants to con­tin­ue mov­ing. “The po­lice said this is a march. Let’s move.”

Full coverageTrade Unions Press Ahead With October 30 March Over Labour Disputes20 reports

Mon­day’s Gov­ern­ment an­nounce­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s in­struc­tions for im­me­di­ate con­clu­sion of ne­go­ti­a­tions with named bar­gain­ing units didn’t dis­tract from union is­sues—nor de­tract from turnout. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh, an­nounc­ing the con­clu­sion, laud­ed pub­lic ser­vants, who a week ago were warned by the PM about lazi­ness.