PRESIDENT GENERAL’S ADDRESS
TO THE
SIXTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES
OF THE
OILFIELDS WORKERS’ TRADE UNION
BY ERROL K. MCLEOD
FRIDAY JULY 26TH, 2002
OWTU PARAMOUNT BUILDING
SAN FERNANDO
Comrade Chairman; Dr. the Honourable Ralph Gonsalves – Comrade Ralph! – Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Comrade Otto Morero, Head and Comrade Maria Elena Medina Rodriguez, Desk Officer for Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean Section of the International Relations Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba; Executive Colleagues in the OWTU; Executive Officers from Unions and NGOs in the Independent Trade Union and NGO movement; other Distinguished Guests, Comrade Delegates to this the Sixty-Third Annual Conference of Delegates of this great Union; Members of the Union’s Staff; Media representatives; Friends, Sisters and Brothers:
This, the Formal Opening of the 63rd Annual Conference of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union, is a historic occasion indeed and will certainly prove to be recorded in years to come as one of the most important and memorable in our long experience!
I make so bold to state this because our Sixty-Third Annual Conference of Delegates is being held simultaneously with the commemoration of the Union’s Sixty-Fifth Anniversary. It was on July 25th, 1937 that the Founding Conference of Delegates of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union was held at “Saltfish Hall”, Mucurapo Street, San Fernando. This Founding Conference followed the first meeting of the Union, which was held on July 15th, 1937 at Mr. Williams’ quarters, Coon’s Town, Forest Reserve, Fyzabad.
Yesterday, therefore marked our 65th birthday! And we meet today, 65 years old and as strong and full of energy as we have been at any time in our history. 65 may be a time in an individual’s life when most are enjoying the more relaxed pace of retirement, but for an institution like the OWTU, 65 means that we are simply more experienced and better equipped to tackle all of life’s challenges!
But, as we meet in Conference on the occasion of our 65th Anniversary, we would do well to reflect on the spirit of those courageous men and women who put their jobs and their very lives at risk in organizing the June 19th, 1937 General Strike and Anti-Colonial Revolt, without which the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union could not have been born. Indeed, the blood that was shed and the sacrifices that were made in that strike and revolt were the labour pains that were an integral part of the birthing process of our great Union.
In the Minutes of the First Meeting of the Union, it is recorded that Comrade McDonald Moses, the first person to be elected as Vice-President of the OWTU, stated “if we don’t organize, so long will we be industrial serfs”. The workers of 1937 who founded the OWTU clearly understood that in the life and death struggle between capital and labour, labour had to be well organized. They then “walked the talk” and set about to build an institution that would be capable of battling capital and succeeding in the securing of victories.
Let us just think for a moment what life would be like in Trinidad and Tobago, if there was no General Strike and Anti-Colonial Revolt in June, 1937. Let us consider where we would be – as workers, as a society – had not the patriots of 1937 taken action, had ordinary oilworkers not had the courage of their conviction to organize this Union. If these things had not happened, then Comrades, it is my view that life would be very dismal for the vast majority of the people in this country and, indeed, throughout the Caribbean. I venture to paint, in sketch form only, a picture of what T&T would look like had there not been June 19th, had there been no OWTU. And I invite you to see if my art-work is accurate or just some false image. This is my picture:
o There would be no trade unions and collective agreements to protect workers from arbitrary acts by the employer
o Workers would still be receiving pennies per day like in many Latin American countries where workers are paid $1 US per day! Today!
o Workers would not have the type of benefits that they enjoy today. COLA, paid leaves of absence such as for vacation, sick leave, injury, maternity & paternity, casual/business just would not exist for the ordinary worker. There would be no pension, medical and housing plans. No savings plan. No allowances for travelling, disturbance, overtime, and other inconveniences to workers. And workers would still work 60 hours per week today.
How am I doing? Is the picture accurate? Is it clear? Let me sketch in some other parts of the canvas.
o We would not enjoy the right to vote
o We would not be an independent nation. We would still be a colony with the British being in charge and we “Her Majesty’s subjects”.
o Our children would not all have access to primary, far less secondary school and education.
o The housing and health care conditions of the people would be primitive as they are for so many millions in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
o There would be open discrimination in employment and in other areas opportunities would be closed for the sons and daughters of the working class. The glass ceiling would be that no local person – man or woman – and especially if you were African or Indian, could attain a position of Supervisor or higher.
o Employers would be free to victimize workers and there would be no recourse.
If my sketch is accurate, what I have identified is that, in essence, all that we have today, we owe to the work of the patriots of 1937. And so, as we celebrate our 65th anniversary, we salute those patriotic comrades, the “warrior workers” as the Chief Servant – Tubal Uriah Butler – described them.
They did an excellent job. The foundation that they laid was well built and has stood the test of time. It has enabled successive generations to build an institution – the OWTU - that today is respected by all, as the premier workers’ organisation in the Caribbean. We therefore owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the pioneers, the founders of this Union and today, as we meet in Annual Conference, we recognise and pay tribute to these comrades, most of whom have now gone to the great beyond.
But we are exceptionally privileged to have with us our first General Secretary who, believe it or not, Comrade Ralph, celebrated his Hundredth Birthday in this the Sixty-Fifth year of the OWTU! Yes, on April 7th we had a Centenarian in the OWTU! We therefore wish to pay particular tribute to Comrade Elbert Redvers Blades – our very first General Secretary! And so today is historic indeed since we not only are able to stand here and commemorate our 65th Anniversary, but we do so in the presence of one of those who made it all happen! And we join with Comrade E.R. Blades to give thanks to God for his innings of 100 not out for this Union!
But, Comrade Chairman, there are additional reasons why I say that today is historic. Today, July 26th, commemorates the Anniversary of the brave and heroic attack on the Moncada Barracks in the City of Santiago de Cuba by one Fidel Castro and a group of just over 100 young revolutionaries. That single action, taken exactly 49 years ago has altered the entire course of world history for, though it was a military failure, it marked the successful start of the Cuban Revolution! In less than six years after Moncada, the July 26th Movement led by Fidel, Che, Raul, Juan Almeida, Camilio and other revolutionaries had removed the dictator Batista and created a free and independent Cuba.
And today Cuba stands tall as a beacon of hope for all of humankind as, by example, it affirms that people must come before profit; that peace, bread, justice and equity are not just noble ideals but achievable objectives; that socialism, while not a perfect system is by far and away a better system than capitalism; that it is better to give than to receive and therefore internationalism is both a duty and a joy. So today, as we meet in Annual Conference we salute Revolutionary Cuba and we pay tribute to the martyrs of July 26th without whose blood we would not now be able to celebrate the success of the Cuban Revolution.
But what an occasion this is, for we celebrate July 26th in the presence of two friends and comrades from Cuba, two senior Comrades in the Communist Party of Cuba – Comrades Otto and Maria Elena! And we ask comrades, that you convey firstly, our congratulations on the 49th anniversary of the July 26th attack on Moncada and secondly, our sincere thanks for all that Cuba has meant and done for us in the Caribbean and indeed, throughout the world, to Comrade Commandante en Jefe, Fidel, and to the Party, Trade Unions and other Mass Organizations and to the Cuban people. Muchas Gracias Companeros!
Today we meet, Comrade Chairman, on the eve of the Fortieth anniversary of our country’s Independence. This is an opportunity for us to give pause and reflect soberly on the experience of those forty years and of the 26 years of our status as a Republic. This is even more crucial given the quite tumultuous events in the nation’s politics and government over the past few years. And just as the patriots of 1937 hugely advanced the struggle for independence and democracy, so the OWTU, meeting 65 years later in Annual Conference, has the opportunity to further advance the realization of the desire by workers and the poor for deeper and more democracy. I shall return to this later, but suffice it to say that our 65th Anniversary coincides with the nation’s 40th Anniversary and therefore we, being elder and more experienced have to make our age and our collective wisdom count.
Comrades, do you see now why I said that this is indeed a historic Conference? But I am not yet done. For today, we have amongst us, to celebrate our 65th Anniversary, to commemorate July 26th none other than an outstanding Caribbean leader – Comrade Ralph Gonsalves! And, Comrade Chairman, this is the very first time in the 65 years of our existence that we have had the honour and privilege of a sitting Prime Minister addressing our Annual Conference. And we feel happy that it is Dr. the Honourable Ralph Gonsalves who will be delivering the Feature Address at this 63rd Annual Conference since he has had a long tradition of struggling for and on behalf of the poor and powerless in his country and the Caribbean. And we know that already he has begun to introduce progressive change in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a path that we trust he will stay on. In this regard we note that so many Caribbean leaders, once in political office, have abandoned the ideals of bread, equity and justice for all. Fidel, on the other hand has shown that it is possible to be faithful to one’s beliefs, even after being in government for 40 years. It is a lesson that we are sure Comrade Ralph knows well. So today we not only commemorate historical milestones, we are indeed making history!
But Comrade Delegates, as important as it is to celebrate major milestones, it is even more crucial for us at this time, to strengthen our organization and our capacity so as to successfully continue the battle against capital. As we have emphasized time and time again at various meetings, seminars, forums and rallies organized by this Union, we are today confronted with the neo-liberal policies of the owners and managers of capital. Privatisation, trade liberalisation, the pursuit by the employer class of company restructuring and the casualisation of the labour force are all still being implemented with devastating consequences for working people and the poor.
The evidence is there for all to see. Every sector of our economy is under threat. It is obvious in the manufacturing industry. Take Lever Brothers and Nestle, for example, – two giant transnationals – that are reorganising their global production so as to squeeze out the last drop of profits by shutting down production here in Trinidad and in the process, retrenching workers. Other sectors are equally at risk. Our airline industry and the tourism service sector are vulnerable to global events such as September 11th. Our large firms, such as Trinidad Cement Ltd, are threatened by the process of the concentration of capital, as the big fish eat the small fish and leave the small fish to eat mud. Our sugar industry is faced with possible closure with cataclysmic job losses as the rules of trade become increasingly more unfair. And everywhere the owners and managers of capital, in an obscene rush to satisfy the false god of “shareholder value” or the naked pursuit of profits by any means necessary, engage in activity ranging from cooking the books Enron or Worldcom or Xerox style, to doing illegal stuff the Johnson & Johnson way, to just plain attacking the workers using all the techniques of “human resource management”.
Now, if the company that makes the products that ‘babies are supposed to trust’ can engage in illegal activity, if the company that made ‘copying’ famous can cook its books, if human resource management really means the destruction of workers’ lives through retrenchment, downsizing, multi-skilling and so on, where are we headed? What example is being offered by the owners and managers of capital, what vision is being advanced by this neo-liberal paradigm, for the babies of this world to trust and to copy?
The truth is, Comrade Chairman, that we ought not to be surprised by this process of neo-liberal globalisation. After all, globalisation is not, for us, a new phenomenon. In fact, the modern Caribbean was called into being as a result of globalisation. With our production and export of sugar and importation of labour (slavery and later indenture) and other staple commodities we immediately became an integral, indeed central part of the then global capitalist economy of Western Europe, West Africa and the Americas.
For the better part of 500 years we have therefore had to deal with all that globalisation has meant. More than anyone in the world we should be able to understand its dynamics and distill its lessons. The cyclical nature of commodity prices, radically changing trade arrangements, the collapse of demand for a particular commodity – all of these have been a part of our long historical experience.
Take the issue of free trade, for example. In our early period of sugar production there was no free trade. Trade only took place between the colonizer and its particular colony of conquest. Thus it was unthinkable for Barbados to sell sugar to Spain. But once the European economies had become industrialised on the basis of the huge surpluses of capital which were generated through slave labour, and as soon as our sugar became uncompetitive with that of Brazil, Australia and European beet, mercantilism took over and out went trade protection and in came free trade. Our economies were left to fend for themselves as they were exposed to the onslaught of the old economic theory that money is the only form of wealth.
This is why I say that the present process of trade liberalization ought not to surprise us. In the post world war II period, countries did not wish free trade since their corporations had to develop behind protective barriers. In the aftermath of the Great Depression and the capitalist crisis of the twenties, which crisis spawned the social and political turmoil that led to the rise of fascism, the world needed a certain stability which could only be provided by the regulation of world trade and the reigning in of corporate power.
Today, national borders have become an obstacle to capital’s insatiable appetite for expansion. Regulations and laws by national governments are fetters on capital’s desire to maximize profits. And trade unions and collective agreements are preventing the owners and managers of capital from exploiting labour as fully as they wish.
And how is global capital seeking to achieve its agenda? Through the process of trade liberalization via the various “free trade agreements” – the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the negotiations for a new African, Pacific, Caribbean – European Union (ACP-EU) arrangement to replace the old Lome Agreements.
In these processes, global capital knows that its agenda will dominate since the playing field is far from being level. They know that they have much more power and immense resources than we possess. This is primarily due, Comrade Chairman, to the fact that one of the features of our incorporation into the global economy has been that the critical decisions with respect to the choice of economic activity to be invested in, the size and nature of that investment, the continuation of investment, have not traditionally resided in local hands. Nor have we, since formal political independence, made a sustained effort to ensure that our economy is organised to be independent of the global corporations.
One consequence of this is that our production platform has remained at the low end of the value chain, our exports are of primary products, and there are few linkages created between the main commodities that we produce and the rest of the economy. Nor have we been successful in translating whatever “rents” (taxes, royalties) are obtained from the export sector to productive investment in the domestic economy, so as to create sustainable economic growth. To this one could add that the rents received have been at a virtual give-away price from the national standpoint. I refer, for example, to the tax holidays and other so-called incentives given to multinationals, and to the obscenely low royalty of one (1%) cent per thousand cubic metres of natural gas.
We therefore continue to have a dual economy – an offshore sector that is an integral part of the global economy and which is dominated by external decision makers, namely the multinational corporations; and an onshore economy that is disconnected from the offshore, but whose fortunes are critically dependent on it. To that extent therefore we have ended up being victims of the global market place rather than determiners of our future.
And so globalisation hits the entire country hard, but in this scenario, labour has always been marginalised. When the demand for, and hence prices of, our commodities are down, it is labour who has to bear the brunt of the adjustment. External investors can and do shift their production elsewhere. Owners and managers of capital can survive on the substantial surpluses from earlier periods when prices were high. Some investors seek government protection – the sugar and cocoa estate owners certainly did in bygone eras! But the workers? Well, they were always seen just as a source of cheap labour to be exploited by capital.
So it has been in the past and so it is in the present. Some have erroneously suggested that we now live in a new world, a world where the paradigm is fundamentally different. But from where we stand, the world is the same old world of the rich getting richer and more powerful and the poor, poorer and more powerless. Indeed, it can be likened to a motor-car. Today’s cars are very different with respect to the materials they are made of, and the features that they are adorned with. ABS brakes, airbags, geo-positioning computers, CD players etc did not exist 15 years ago, as air-conditioning, tape decks and seatbelts didn’t exist 20 years before that. But strip it down to its basic essence and the motor-car is the same as it was 50 years ago! It has an engine, transmission, wheels and requires a driver to operate. So while there are new features, it is the same beast. So with the motor-car, so with the capitalist system.
Unfortunately, our experience is that our political leaders, present company excepted, seem not to understand what is going on. Take the TCL issue and that of the FTAA, for example.
Here is an opportunity for the entire country to learn about neo-liberal globalisation and how we, as a small country, must confront it. Here is an opportunity for a government, if it were enlightened, to guide citizens on the issues, to mobilize the national community around the need for us, as a nation and as a Caribbean region to save and invest in creating local productive capacity so that we could break that cycle of dependence to which I referred earlier.
But, instead of having enlightened leadership what we get are statements by people who are at best clueless, and who are at worst buffoons. The latter, I am sure you would agree is epitomized by a valley that is so shallow that it cannot hold more than an ounce of anything, including brains. And as for the clueless, well, he is probably waiting for some divine inspiration from Benny Hinn.
You know, if this wasn’t such a serious issue we could all laugh and not worry about the consequences. However, the cluelessness and the buffoonery will cost us dearly with TCL and on other major issues. Let me explain.
You see, these people do not realize that a key feature of today’s globalisation is the trend towards a concentration of capital. They seem oblivious to this. The neo-liberal economic theorists were of the view ological revolution, informatics and so on, would result in a proliferation of actors and more competition. The opposite has been the reality.
Perhaps in response to the power of finance capital, perhaps in response to continuing declines in rates of return, perhaps in response to the need to accumulate larger surpluses to keep pace with technological change, perhaps in order to control markets, perhaps to satisfy the dynamics of power or due to a combination of all of these, what we have been experiencing is strategic alliance, merger and mega-merger. This is having a profound effect in some markets, is forcing small firms out of business and weakening the power of nation states.
This concentration of capital is being complemented by the increased power of the international financial institutions and their sister organisation the World Trade Organisation. These institutions have considerably strengthened the position of capital vis a vis that of the nation states of the developing world and in the process there has been a gigantic shift in wealth from the poor to the rich within countries and from poor countries to the rich. All the evidence is there and I need not spell it out now as I am sure that you are familiar with it. Let me however, quote Noreena Hertz, the Associate Director of the Centre of International Business and Management at the Judge Institute of the University of Cambridge, in her insightful book – ‘The Silent Takeover, Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy’:
“Propelled by government policies of privatisation, deregulation and trade liberalisation, and the advances in communication technologies in the past twenty years, a powershift has taken place. The hundred largest multinational corporations now control about 20 percent of global foreign assets, fifty one of the hundred biggest economies in the world are now corporations, only forty-nine are nation states. The sales of General Motors and Ford are greater than the GDP of the whole of sub-Sahara Africa; the assets of IBM, BP and General Electric outstrip the economic capabilities of most small nations; and Wal-mart, the US supermarket retailer, has higher revenues than most Central and Eastern European states including Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. The size of corporations is increasing. In the first year of the new millennium communications giant Vodafone merged with Mannesmann, pharmaceutical conglomerate Smith Kline Beecham with Glaxo Wellcomme and internet provider AOL with media corporation Time Warner…. Governments once battled for physical territory; today they fight for market share. They see their primary job as that of ensuring an environment in which business can prosper, and which is attractive to business. The role of nation states has become to a large extent simply that of providing the public goods and infrastructure that business needs at the lowest costs and protecting the world free trade system.”
In the UNDP Human Development Report 1999 it was stated that “The recent wave of mergers and acquisitions (M&A’s) is concentrating industrial power in mega corporations – at the risk of eroding competition. By 1998 the top 10 companies in pesticides controlled 85% of a $31billion global market – and the top 10 in telecommunications, 86% of a $262 billion market”. The Report also gives data on the impact that cross border M&A’s have on the flow of Foreign Direct Investment. Thus in 1992 M&A’s contributed some $60 billion or 42% of total FDI, while in 1997 it was $236 billion or 59%.
This means that, like the Cemex attempt to takeover TCL, money (FDI) will flow into our economy, but not to create new productive capacity or to expand existing capacity. It will just buy what is there already, thus adding absolutely nothing to our economy. And the two spokespersons for the T & T government, so far, can’t understand something so simple!
And you are familiar with the data on the worsening income distribution the world over. The world’s richest 200 billionaires have the same net worth as the world’s poorest 3 billion people! And the ratio between the average pay of the CEO of the Fortune 500 companies to that of the average blue-collar worker was 50 to 1 in 1980, 150 to 1 in 1990 and 500 to 1 in 2000!
If this is the agenda of global capital, why then do we wish to assist it? Are we like the slateys who sold their fellow villager into slavery, or like the laguazie – slaves who were used by the slave-owners to be the slave drivers?
In the specific case of TCL, it is clear what Cemex‘s agenda is. Cemex owns cement capacity of some 80 million tonnes. It is the second largest cement producer in the world and is aiming to be numero uno. Amongst other places, it owns plants in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, has just acquired a plant in the Dominican Republic, is seeking to buy a plant in Puerto Rico and has a terminalling operation in Haiti. The only parts of the Greater Caribbean puzzle that are missing are Cuba - and the market controlled by TCL. Cemex wants to control the entire regional market. The implications of such a monopoly producer in the region would be the eventual increase in price and other factors inimical to the interests of workers, investors and consumers. Cemex is neither interested in our development nor the welfare of its employees or of our people. It is concerned only with its bottom-line and therefore it will make any decision, including shutting in of our cement producing capacity and the consequential retrenchment of all the workers, that it believes necessary to achieve its objective.
Yet the buffoon and the clueless say they are taking a “hands-off position”. And this, mind you, after stating that “if they had shares they would sell them right away”. What unmitigated nonsense! While they have no shares personally, what they are in fact selling is our patrimony! Let me say this. Today, we put these political misfits and everyone else – the banks and other financial institutions and corporations on notice. There will be a price to pay for how you vote on Monday at TCL’s EGM! We shall demonstrate to you that working people have more power than you think.
You need us, after all, more than we need you! The politician needs our vote. The banks need our pension funds – for pension assets in this country total $15 billion of which OWTU members’ pension funds total more than $8 billion! Companies need us to buy their goods and their services. And it is high time that we demonstrate that gone are the days that workers cede their power to the owners and managers of capital!
We reiterate, the Government is in a position to avert a takeover. It must act in the national and regional interest. Governments that act in their national interest are not going contrary to the globalisation process. The US action in defence of its steel, timber and agricultural sectors is ample evidence of this, as is Japan’s and the European Union’s staunch support and protection of their agricultural sectors. We cannot be so naïve or so unrecognizing of our own strategic national and regional interest to simply allow Cemex to walk in here and takeover TCL when, if the shoe was on the other foot, other, larger and more powerful countries would have made every effort to defend a TCL from a predatory takeover. Only the shallow valley seems not to recognize this truth, or is it that he has his interests cemented elsewhere?
We believe that Governments have a responsibility to protect the interests of all the working people and citizens, before anyone else. Charity, after all, must begin at home! Certainly Prime Minister Arthur of Barbados understands this, as his comments on the TCL issue attest. And from the media reports of the last Caricom Summit, it would seem that Prime Minister Anthony of St. Lucia understood the dangers of the FTAA, while not wishing to put our distinguished Feature Speaker in an awkward position, protocol wise, we are sure that Comrade Ralph understands what I am saying.
You see, Comrades, For the Caribbean to survive in this globalised world, we must seek to strengthen the capacities of our regional firms so that they can better generate growth and produce wealth utilising our natural, physical and human resources. TCL is an excellent example of the type of company that is required if we are to achieve this objective. For TCL to be taken over by Cemex would be to weaken our capacity and to meekly surrender to the forces of globalisation.
One of the strategies that Caricom Heads of Government have collectively agreed upon to counter the forces of globalisation, is the creation of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME). The CSME is meant to facilitate the growth of regional firms such as TCL as well as build a substantial regional capital market. Publicly traded companies have been encouraged to be listed on all three of the Stock Exchanges (Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago), and private firms not now traded are also being encouraged to “go public”. If Cemex were to buy out 100% of TCL then TCL, which is listed on all three Stock Exchanges will be de-listed and Carib Cement, 75% of whose shares are owned by TCL would also be de-listed. This runs counter to the stated Caricom objective of building a regional capital market.
A takeover of TCL by Cemex would also set a precedent in that many of our major corporations – banks, insurance companies, manufacturing and commercial firms – that are listed on the Stock Exchange could be open to acquisition by large, foreign multinationals. RBTT, Republic and Guardian Holdings don’t seem to recognize that it’s a case of today for TCL, tomorrow for you. In this process of neo-liberal globalisation every hog will have its Saturday if we don’t do something to prevent ourselves from ending up in the pot. If Cemex is allowed to start the ball rolling of the buy-out of locally listed companies, the result would be not only the decimation of the various national capital markets, but the still-birth of the CSME.
TCL is owned by more than 6,000 shareholders. In addition, a substantial number of shares are owned by pension funds, credit unions, mutual funds and the NIB. In this way, hundreds of thousands of ordinary working people in fact have a shareholding in TCL. When TCL does well, they - pensioners, contributors to pension funds and the NIS, credit union members, mutual fund holders – all benefit. If Cemex were to takeover the only beneficiary of TCL doing well would be Cemex. This is how monopoly capital ownership operates. It is undemocratic and concentrates wealth in the hands of a few. And we state that while it would have been even better to have had TCL remain a state owned company, as we argued way back in 1988 when the then NAR government privatized it, it is equally true that it is better today to have TCL owned by the largest possible number of shareholders, than for it to be owned by a single foreign multinational!
But we have some valleys in positions of authority whose heads are so shallow that they cannot hold all this analysis. For them, we must be like the laguazies and the slateys. That is why, when in a previous incarnation in government they sold out our valuable state companies to foreign capital. That is why they can go to Cabinet with a proposal from another slatey, this time a Union Leadership to privatize 100% of Tanteak. It is to be noted that the leader of this trade union openly boasted that his position is that in so far as state enterprises are concerned “government is blight”. Ronald Reagan must be smiling in the stupor of his illness at how a trade unionist in Trinidad and Tobago supports his doctrine of privatization, while Iron Lady Thatcher must be having a drink of sherry over how easy it still is to recruit a laguazie.
The Minister responsible for Trade and Investment had better come to his senses soon, he will not be allowed to engage in bad faith negotiations with the OWTU. He cannot accept a proposal from one union on Tanteak without determining the OWTU’s position. And if he does, he will pay a price, I assure him.
Enough said on that. Except to state that the OWTU’s very principled and consistent position on Tanteak is that it, like TCL, is a strategic company in the strategic industry of managing in an environmentally sustainable manner our valuable forest products. And that, therefore, the state must continue to hold, at minimum, 51% of the ownership of Tanteak, while ensuring the job security and the provision of decent jobs for the workers.
Comrade Chairman, as I stated earlier, the neo-liberal agenda of privatisation, trade liberalisation, and of company restructuring and the casualisation of the labour force are all still being implemented with devastating consequences for working people and the poor. What is at risk are our jobs, decent jobs and our job security. This is why the OWTU, as an integral member of the Group of Independent Trade unions and NGOs, has been focusing on a campaign on “Jobs, Decent Jobs, and Job Security for all”.
It is our very strong belief that today, more than ever the Trade Union is an absolute necessity if we are to battle neo-liberalism. Far from being a dinosaur, the trade union is still the strongest, best organized, most democratic organisation representing the interests of ordinary people. What we require is to focus on our historical mission. That mission is the full emancipation of the people. It is a mission derived from the vision established from our very inception 65 years ago. The vision of a society built on the principles of “Peace, Bread, Equity, Justice and Sustainable Livelihoods for All”.
I believe, Comrades, that we can advance along the path of this vision by engaging in our campaign for “Jobs, Decent Jobs, and Job Security for All”. And in so doing we can, as a trade union, help to give voice to the concerns and aspirations of tens of thousands, indeed, hundreds of thousands of people in our society.
As I said on Labour Day this year, while we have won many gains since 1937, much more still needs to be done. And further, if we don’t engage in struggle then what we have may be lost. We must therefore take a stand and resolve to fight against all the very many injustices that abound in the land.
I therefore urge this Conference of Delegates to take a stand to fight for Jobs
for All! This means that we must take a stand to fight:
o For Jobs for all those who are unemployed. The country is about to experience a huge inflow of wealth. We must demand that these petrodollars are invested in the creation, of sustainable jobs for all.
o For Jobs to be urgently provided for the nation’s youth, the majority of whom are unemployed
o For the complete restructuring of the education system
o For training programmes, including company financed apprenticeship programmes for the unemployed and others who need skills to get decent jobs.
We Must Take a Stand to Fight for Decent Jobs for All!
This means that we must take a stand to fight:
o Against the wicked and unjust contract system that results in the super-exploitation of thousands of workers
o Against the use by employers of the unjust system of casual and temporary workers to do work that is in fact permanent work.
o Against the strategy of out-sourcing of work normally done by permanent workers be it through the use of so-called service companies or the lease-out and farm-out of oilfields
o Against the exploitation of thousands of workers, mostly women workers, who work in the service sector – the fast foods and hospitality sector, domestic workers, workers in stores – who are being super-exploited. These workers are being denied their basic rights such as the Minimum Wage, overtime pay, NIS and other benefits.
o Against the super-exploitation of workers in the security industry who work very long hours, do not receive overtime, are paid less than the Minimum Wage and whose very lives are put at risk.
o For new labour laws and/or amendments to existing laws (such as the unjust IRA) so that workers rights are properly recognized, and in particular to ensure that workers can easily and without fear of victimization join a trade union of their choice and have the unfettered right to take industrial action.
This means that we must take a stand to fight:
o Against the unjust and unfair trade arrangements such as the WTO, FTAA etc.
o Against privatization and other strategies such as the demonopolisation of the domestic fuels market and the telecommunication and electricity industries
o Against restructuring and other strategies by the owners and managers of capital that seek to have workers do more than one job, thus overworking some while denying others employment
o To ensure that all permanent work is done by permanent workers, thus guaranteeing them job security
This means that we must take a stand to fight:
o The reform of the NIS to guarantee NIS pensioners an immediate increase to at least $1,000 per month
o Against any attempt by the IMF/IDB or World Bank to introduce pension reform that would see: (a) Workers, and especially public employees suffering a reduction in their pension benefits, (b) The privatization of the NIS, (c) The breaking up of existing workplace pension plans, (d) The harmonization of NIS and workplace pensions
o For proper health care for the elderly, as well as the provision of public facilities for both the elderly and the disabled.
This means that we must take a stand to fight:
o To ensure that the exploitation of our oil and gas resources is not done at the expense of the environment and the safety and health of workers and communities
o For the enactment of a proper Occupational Health & Safety law and the establishment of the necessary regulations to give such a law teeth, and similarly for the environmental law
o For the state to continue ownership of Tanteak and for that company to be returned as the sole agency responsible for the management of our nation’s forest patrimony
o Against so-called development projects that alienate large amounts of land for use by a tiny rich, elite while resulting in the exclusion and/or removal of ordinary people from the said land. The objections by people like Lloyd Cartar with respect to the building of two government schools in Westmoorings is an example of this.
o Against so-called development projects that destroy the natural habitat.
These, I suggest, are the urgent and immediate tasks for the OWTU in the coming period.
It would be remiss of me however if I did not briefly identify some of the successes that we have had on these issues since we last met in Conference. Thus:
o We have been fighting back against the exploitation of the contract system at Petrotrin with a very powerful Contract Week at Pointe-a-Pierre & Santa Flora. As a result we have forced Petrotrin to implement some of the various provisions in our collective agreements that protect contract workers.
o We have had success in getting some temporary workers made permanent at Petrotrin, NP, T&TEC and Agos, amongst others
o We have been successful in having changes effected in the organizational structure at Petrotrin and Trinmar and beating back plans for further lease-out and farm-out
o We have won very substantial improvements to existing pension plans – especially at UWI; and established plans for workers who previously did not have such a benefit
o We have, as part of the Independent Trade Unions and NGOs, begun to popularize the campaign for Jobs, Decent Jobs and Job Security for All. Last week, for example members of the Group went through Port of Spain handing out pamphlets to super-exploited store workers and received a very positive response.
o We have, through our Public policy Forums and other means continued to Educate and inform members and the public on all the issues, since a conscious worker is a militant and better worker
Delegates will no doubt discuss in great detail tomorrow all the successes, and the failures too, for that is the democracy of the OWTU, a democracy that I humbly submit is second to none! So we shall discuss what our scoreboard looks like, but I daresay that we are ahead. We have completed collective agreements that will see many workers and their families enjoying an improved standard of living and quality of life. We have negotiated to introduce and/or improve medical, savings, housing and pension plans. We have obtained loans, interest free for workers to acquire computers. We fought recalcitrant employers - especially T&TEC and NP – with their bad industrial relations and secured the re-instatement and compensation for workers who were wrongly dismissed or suspended.
We have done so quietly and without fanfare because when we win victories we are simply doing our duty. Others like to boast, but we believe that the old adage –empty vessels make the most noise – is so very true. But let nobody mistake our style for weakness! These successes, Comrade Chairman, were not due to the work of one person or even the Central Executive. They were the result of the tremendous efforts, sacrifices and struggles by our very many dedicated Branch Officers and Shop Stewards, loyal Labour Relations Officers and other Staff Members and the committed rank and file member. To all of you I say a heartfelt “Thank You!” you have done the OWTU proud and you have served the cause of the working class with distinction.
Comrade Chairman, I cannot end without a word about the state of the nation. You would recall that when we met in Conference last year there was a government in office that had been elected just seven months before. This government won for the very first time an absolute majority in the Parliament, on its own steam and with a push, no doubt, from questionable electoral arrangements. Within three months of the conclusion of our Conference the government had collapsed in a heap, under the weight of their own sins. The corruption of the Panday UNC government was unprecedented and it was at this very podium one year ago that I announced that the Group of Independent Trade Unions and NGOs would be having a major march on August 29th.
That marked the start of a series of our interventions in the national politics. We organized the Integrity Platform of Town and Public Meetings that exposed the corruption and set the agenda of issues for the inevitable election campaign that followed the collapse of the UNC government. We intervened immediately after the historic 18-18 tied elections on December 10th and articulated the only cogent and democratic proposal for a resolution of that constitutional and political stalemate. We advocated power sharing at Executive level between the two parliamentary parties; power sharing between the Executive and Civil society at the level of the Senate; a limited programme of governmental action; a clean up of the EBC and the lists and new elections within a set timeframe.
Our proposals were, not surprisingly, rejected by the parties and their leaders, though the then Opposition Leader now Prime Minister did at least meet with us to discuss them. The then Prime Minister refused to meet with us, an indication of the fact that he is not as smart a politician as he is made out to be. His attitude displayed vindictiveness, not smartness. But, for those of us who know him well, that is par for the course.
The end result of the failure of the leaders to accept our advice was a joke of an agreement, now known as the Crowne Plaza Accord, which was reneged upon by Panday and the UNC as soon as the President appointed Manning as Prime Minister. Again, for those of us who know Basdeo Panday this was to be expected for Panday is only interested in one thing – himself.
The upshot of all this is that we are almost sure to go the polls for the third time in General Elections in less than three years. Add to this a Local Government election in 1999 and the Tobago House of Assembly elections in 2001 and another local government election due now, and you will see that we are entering a period of election fatigue. And this is made worse as a result of what is on offer. Some have said that we have a choice between “a mook and a crook”. Others would say, more politely, that we are between a rock and a hard place. However put, the truth is that all the parties represent the same interest - that of capital. They pursue with relish the neo-liberal paradigm. Working people and the poor are wound up to vote based on race and religion and are then retrenched and pauperized by the very persons they elected. The system stinks. The participants are either bankrupt of ideas or totally corrupt.
It is my view, Comrade Chairman, that we need to address this issue head on. We have postponed dealing with it for too long.
Finally, comrades, it is well known that elections in the OWTU are to be held this year. I have no doubt that the owners and mangers of capital have organized a slatey and some laguazies to do their dirty work of trying to destabilize the Union and derail us from the path that we have set out on. To them I simply say – this Union is 65 years old. It has withstood all kinds of attacks – from within and without. We have been confronted with slateys and laguazies in the past. And at all times the Union has prevailed! Remember the saying – he who tries to destroy the OWTU ends up destroying himself? It is a saying that all the mercenaries on behalf of capital would do well to know.
Comrade Delegates, like the patriots of 1937, we have a choice today. As McDonald Moses said - we either “organise” or “remain as industrial serfs”. The Comrades in 1937 ‘organised’. What will history record 65 years from now? Will it say we ‘organised’, will it say we ‘walked the talk’, or will it say we did nothing and so remained ‘industrial serfs’. The choice is ours, Comrade Delegates. Let us not be found wanting. The outcomes of this Annual Conference will be a yardstick of how history will judge us.
Let us therefore go – Forward Ever, Backward Never! Long live the OWTU!
Thank you very much! that the policies of liberalisation introduced in an era of technology
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63RD ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES
Friday 26th July, 2002
DR. THE HON. RALPH GONSALVES
PRIME MINISTER OF ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
FEATURE ADDRESS
‘ The Economics and Political Challenges Facing the Caribbean Labour Movement Today’
I am very pleased to be here, indeed very honored, that I am the first head of government ever to have been invited to address the Conference of the Oilfields Worker’s Trade Union in its sixty-five years. Perhaps it has had something to do with the fact that I have spent most of my adult life involved in work in defense of the working people and of our Caribbean civilization, and I’m too late to change now. I believe that I’ve come here today, to specially grace, because I was recently, just a few days ago, in Rome (with my eighty-three year old mother, my wife and my daughter), where I was fortunate enough to have an audience with the Holy Father and I have received blessings enough for me and Errol. Of course, I have a very intimate connection with Trinidad and Tobago. My mother is a Trinidadian and my wife is also a Trinidadian. I am entitled therefore, on two counts, to citizenship of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. But since I believe our laws are similar to those of Trinidad and Tobago, it may not be wise for me to follow in the footsteps of ‘Gypsy’, and so voluntarily accept citizenship. So, for the time being I shall remain a national of St. Vincent and the Grenadines but a citizen, in general terms, of the Caribbean.
Of course, I do not know what Vincentian men have and Trinidad men don’t have, because it seems as though all the women from Trinidad and Tobago want to come to St. Vincent to get Vincentian husbands. And I am not advertising for more since I am not a follower of Islam. I think that many people here would know that the widower of our Governor General, late Governor General who died just in June, she was a Trinidadian. The wife of the Prime Minister is a Trinidadian, as I said to you before. The wife of the Deputy Prime Minister is a Trinidadian. I appointed an Attorney General, a woman, who has made her first speech publicly, in the presence of Eric Eustace Williams, and she, a Trinidadian, is married to a Vincentian. And then I went and appointed a Parliamentary Secretary in the office of the Prime Minister, who had been a member of NJAC, here in Trinidad...the poor chap, his wife is a Trinidadian.
So it will be true to say that anyone who may wish, particularly in this climate of election fatigue, to question my coming here, I declare that I am under the government, daily, of Trinidad and Tobago.
Of course, I don’t think that Basdeo would comment adversely on my presence. Since he and I have battled together on many of the issues in opposition and we ate in twenty-one restaurants (at a hotel), years ago in New Delhi and tasted Indian cuisine from every part and every area in India. And my brother Patrick won’t feel too badly about I being here. As is known, we went to the University of the West Indies together. I was responsible for him being tear-gassed on October16th, 1968, when I was President of the student’s union and I led a massive demonstration into the city of Kingston, against the then Jamaica Labour Party government of Hugh Shearer, when their band was robbed from returning to Jamaica. Patrick and I played pan. Well let me put it this way, Patrick and I were in the same pan side at the University of the West Indies. It is not considered to be boastful when I say that I played a tenor pan, which was designed by ‘Invaders’, but perfected by ‘Desperadoes’. With the F-sharp in the middle, it made it easier for you to engage in the runs in ‘G’. Patrick was in the engine room beating the triangle. He told me though, that after I had left the pan side, he took over my tenor pan. I have no recollection but I do not doubt his honesty.
Of course in this election season, anything, as I said this evening, may be taken by one side or the other as favoring them. I really don’t know much about the politics of Trinidad and Tobago, for the purpose of this address. And I’m hoping that they will show me tomorrow in the newspaper (you guys took Larry and me, do you all have that photograph?), to cover me with my wife. I would like you to put it on the front page of a newspaper which would provide a proper balance to the one which appeared on the front page of the ‘Guardian’ when I was leaning back to answer a question from a beautiful Carib girl. So, it can be said that I speak sweetly and embrace warmly persons of both sexes, even though there is no doubt about my sexuality.
I have been asked to speak on the subject, ‘Economics and Political Challenges, Facing the Caribbean Labour Movement Today’. I come to this subject matter after thirty-four years of political involvement in this Caribbean. I have been in opposition longer than Panday, in fact, I never expected to be Prime Minister. It came upon me by good fortune and I know this. Having got it, I operate on the maxim that ‘He who fears the loss of power would loose it swiftly, but he who fears not is likely to hold it much longer’. So, I have a way of ‘thoughting’ what I think and if some things that I say are ‘unpriministerial’, I’ve already said that I’ve been in the wilderness for an extremely long time. Though I can affirm, as a Spiritual Baptist, that ‘weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning’. I have come through the struggle of politics from being what used to be called the ‘petit bourgeois radical’. Through Marxism, the way I am now, heading the working people’s government, fashioning a philosophical framework of social democracy in the early years of the twenty-first century, but grounded in the nobility of our Caribbean civilization.
I heard Errol Mc Leod deliver a magnificent address and a profound analysis about capitalism and the manner in which it has altered its form but not its substantive context, and I share fundamentally with this analysis. The analysis, having been shared, does not mean in any way at all that one accepts within the Caribbean, a programmatic framework for the dismantling of capitalism, but I think it calls for a framework of evolving a system in the interest of our people’s humanization. Of course, there are some that say, “to do so may call for the dismantling of capitalism”, but I am not saying that. I am conscious of where I stand, in the vortex of international relations, and I am conscious of the strengths and weaknesses and the limitations and possibilities in our Caribbean. I listened to Errol Mc Leod deliver a speech which is on all fours with the National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago. I know many of you may be looking at me and ask, “What kind of bizarre proposition is that?” and as often is the case, when new eyes come to a subject matter, things are said which, those who recite them all of the time, don’t see. It’s like many Christians who say the ‘Our Father Prayer’ by rote and don’t understand its profundity.
The National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago asserts the belief of the people of Trinidad and Tobago in the supremacy of God and the freedom and dignity of man, without any discrimination whatsoever on the basis of race. I repeat. The National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago proclaims its belief in the supremacy of God and the freedom and dignity of man without any limitation of that freedom and dignity of man based on race. The second line of the National Anthem proclaims hopefulness...'the Fires of Hope’, not hopelessness, not the assertion which we hear very often from persons who do not think as much as they ought to. That Trinidad and Tobago or the Caribbean is in a state of crisis. Because when you declare crisis and they do not exist, you look for solutions which are inappropriate. It is my view that so long as the principals are not innocent as do the condition which exist and so long as they have a way forward out of the condition, you do not have crisises, you may have difficulty. I repeat. If the principals are not innocent of the extent of the condition and if they have, if they possess the way forward, out of whatever are the extra difficulties, there is no crisis. It’s only if the principals are innocent and if they don’t have a clue as to how you proceed forward, well then the difficulty amounts to crisis. And surely the intellectual power possessed in Trinidad and Tobago and the disdain wisdom over the last sixty-five years, is a reflection of the comparative situation in other countries, in the region and the world. It is not beyond us in the region and in Trinidad, to chart an appropriate way forward because if you define difficulties as crises, you throw your hands up in the air and say that you can’t do anything.
Well, the National Anthem speaks of the ‘fires of hope’, of hopefulness, and some remarkable words…‘with boundless faith in our destiny’, linking the ‘destiny’ to a declaration that ‘side by side we stand, islands of the blue Caribbean Sea’. The destiny this anthem affirms is for the further ennoblement of our Caribbean civilization. It is not a mystery, it is here and Errol Mc Leod spoke about those things, those who were much younger and who don’t listen to ‘Sparrow’ anymore, or ‘Kitchener’ or the ‘Black Stalin’ or the ‘Mystic Prowler’ and they call themselves a Vincentian. Who listens to Buju Banton? Buju has a song called ‘Destiny’. Do you know what the words say at the first verse? Remarkable lyrics, which correspond to the destiny about which Errol spoke. ‘The rich man’s wealth is in the city’, it’s concentrated. The city is a metaphor for its concentration. ‘The destruction of the poor is ‘his’ poverty’, not the poor man’s poverty, the destruction of the poor is the rich man’s poverty. ‘The destruction of the soul is vanity, yes, I and I come to rule I destiny’. You know, things before our very eyes pass us, and the meaning and the ambiance. You are dealing here in simple things, with the challenges. I could talk about many of them and I will, but I want us to begin to see things before our very eyes, which represent us in a distilled way.
A beautiful young lady came here known as ‘Queen of Labour Day’ and I watched her. She represents, symbolically, the beauty and the nobility of our civilization. In the early 1940’s, the Caribbean poet by the name of Hilton Vaughn, a Barbadian who was born in the Dominican Republic, wrote a poem called ‘Revelation’. The poem was written at the time when there was a veritable renaissance in the region. The working people, the peasants, they had taken to the streets in anti-colonial revolt, seeking to fashion their own destiny. In their train came a creativity, which was amazing. Edna Manley in Jamaica was sculpting Negro arouse. Derrick Walcott and George Lamming were just beginning to put their pen to paper, as youngsters. George Campbell was writing the poems of the revolution featuring women and Hilton Vaughn was writing ‘Revelation’, and he was contrasting our Caribbean civilization, and its beauty and its nobility, with that of Europe. He was doing as Caribbean men are wooed to do, to use women as symbols of their expression. Some do it biologically to their loins, others do it in the way Vaughn has attempted to do it, by using the Caribbean woman to contrast her with the classical European beauty, ‘Helen of Troy’, and addresses her in majestic poetic words. And as the young lady stood there, they came to me, ‘Turn sideways now and let them see, what loveliness escapes the schools and turn again and smile and be the perfect answer to those fools who always prayeth of Greece and Rome. The face that launch a thousand ships and such like things, but keep tight lips for a burnished beauty nearer home. Turn in the sun my love, my love; I swear I prize your dusty limbs above my life. What laughing eyes, what gleaming hair, what palm-like grace… ’, that’s our Caribbean to which the anthem speaks about...the destiny about its further ennoblement.
One of the challenges of the Labour Movement and of all of us, individually and collectively, is to further ennoble our Caribbean civilization in all its credentials by building it’s material base, by lifting our levels of understanding and culture and to make ourselves better human beings to do things in the interest of our own humanization. The anthem, as anthems will do, emphasize ‘this our native land’, nationalism, about which Errol Mc Leod spoke. I don’t want to get into comments on anything else. ‘We pledge our lives to thee’. In that, is contained the notion of solidarity, about which Mc Leod spoke and what we are celebrating here today.
I told a story at Woodford Square when I spoke there, some two to three months ago. I’ll tell you my understanding of solidarity at a personal level and the meaning of it to every single one of you here, and to those who may here this voice on radio or wherever they may hear it. My fore-parents came to the Caribbean, to St. Vincent, in 1845 from Madera as indentured servants. My great-great grand father and his son were illiterate in two languages, Portuguese and Hindi. They were bonded for two years. In 1935, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, my father was working as a labourer on an estate. His older brother participated in the 1935 uprising, which was a precursor to the one here in 1937. Among the demands of illiterate and semi-illiterate people following their leaders was that of education. One of the demands was for education, not just secondary education, but also (they didn’t know it but they heard their leader talk about it and they embraced it), university education. The more information came, recommended the University of the West Indies, the first of all university colleges of the West Indies as a part of the University of London. It then got its independence in 1963, one year after Jamaica and Trinidad got theirs, and became an independent university.
I grew up in the rural village. My father, by then, was a small farmer and small businessman. I went to the University of the West Indies in 1966.It was founded in 1948, as a consequence of the struggles in the 1930’s by way of the commission. I will never forget, as long as I live, the simple fact that the University of the West Indies was established because illiterate and semi-illiterate people rose up against colonialism and made certain demands and a University was established; because if UWI was not established, it is most unlikely. However, God, bless me for I had gone to a university. Therefore, my presence here is as a consequence of the solidarity and struggle of the 1930’s. I am a beneficiary of that and therefore I have an obligation to continue to be in solidarity with people for common ends. Because make no mistake about it, the big business people are in solidarity with one another. It’s only working people sometimes get their heads confused and don’t think that they have to be in solidarity with one another. Don’t ever forget that.
Now, a little more on this critical issue of solidarity is within the context that I’ve raised it and posed it. There are many, many University graduates, University of the West Indies and other universities from the Caribbean who are sons and daughters of the working class and the peasantry, but they believe that they have managed to get an education because they are ‘bright’. They think that ‘brightness’ only starts when they are born, brightness has been there for a long time. It is only that there was not a framework for the expression of that brightness and the discipline. And that could only come about, the framework that is, because of collective action of people, by people in solidarity with one another for certain ideas. You get some of the most outrageous comments from those who are the beneficiaries of this solidarity.
Trade Unions…they say you do not need them. Why? They say they’ve outlived their youthfulness, that trade unions were relevant at a time when you had unenlightened management, but now that is not the case they say, they assert. The evidence is not presented, of course. A man who rode a horse and was in a buggy is no less enlightened than a man who drives a BMW. The technology, the mode of transport may be different, but that does not mean the fellow in the BMW is more enlightened because there is a self-interest. They say that trade unions really distort the labour market. That the labour market should be determined, the price of labour should be determined on the basis of supply and demand. And any intervention by a trade union distorts the labour market, and that what you need to do is to remove the rigidities and distortions in the labour market (and part of it is to get rid of the Union). Don’t you read that all about in publications, the need to remove rigidities and distortions and those members of unions, to the extent that they exist, should become mere collaborators with management? Well, I’ll come to that issue shortly because it represents a challenge.
The anthem goes on beyond solidarity and to speak about how each must ‘find an equal place’, equality of opportunity was emphasized. Anybody who goes to the nation with a manifesto based on the national anthem would have the framework for the way forward, not only in Trinidad and Tobago, but for the Caribbean. What you have to do is to look at the philosophical content of the anthem. It addresses some of the central questions, which are facing us, but we must go beyond with the analysis. What is the nature and character of a trade union? A Trade Union is an institution possessed of and is wrapped in contradictions. It does not suggest that the possession of contradictions mean that they are confused. It’s only to understand the contradictions and how those contradictions can be resolved. The trade union is a child of capitalism to the extent that it is the first time, historically, in the evolution of human society that the trade union arose.
Here in the Caribbean, no trade union existed before 1838. Indeed, they could not have existed because the basis of a trade union is the category of workers who sell their labour power for wages, and prior to 1838, you had slaves, chattels, things, that’s how they were characterized, they didn’t sell their labour power. And in 1839, legislation was passed to all these islands to prevent combinations of workers. Why? For the first time in the history in the Caribbean, the category workers arose, in a generalized sense, to sell their labour power for wages. Of course, it took some time, the workers had to become more mature, they were still weighed down by an ethos in the plantation system. They were undeveloped in their consciousness, but in the early 20th century, when the conditions became propitious, trade unions arose in the Caribbean, first in Jamaica, when legislation was put in place for trade unions to be formed, and then of course in 1933, in Trinidad and Tobago. So trade unions are a child of capitalism, to the extent that they arose for the first time under the capitalist mode of production. At the same time, they represent labour, which is objectively opposed to capital, and that is the contradiction. A child of capitalism, and therefore it fits with the contours of capitalism, but represents labour which is objectively opposed to capital. That’s why a trade union by itself cannot change and alter society in any fundamental way. It may ameliorate, it may reform, but it has to be part of a larger movement and process in order that its position and ideas can be within a state system to make the requisite changes at the national level.
Now I am not arguing for the OWTU to take a position in the election. I am only saying what the contradictions are in relation to the union, the very nature of the union. And those contradictions are heightened even more in the era of globalization, which as Errol Mc Leod quite rightly pointed out that this globalization is modern globalization. Among them being of course, great liberalization, unprecedented movement across national boundaries. Lack of boundaries for finance capital are accompanied by a revolution in information technology and the very globalization, incidentally, calls for deepened solidarity by trade unions and the working people across national boundaries. This is why I find this very strange and I’m talking here about the challenge of trade unions to understand themselves and to see themselves in the era of globalization, that we have something peculiar taking place in the Caribbean.
I understand that some gentleman the other day, here in Trinidad, read chapter and verse about me, talked about St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I understand when he finished talking about St. Vincent and the Grenadines, people believed we were poor like Burkina Faso or the Central African Republic. Why? Because Mr. Manning and I spoke about deepening links across the seas. Now Europe can deepen links, there’s no problem, America and Mexico can deepen links, Trinidad and Tobago, in the previous government and in this government want to be in the head quarters of the MPA to have links with the rest of Latin America and Canada and the United States. But I, whose mother is a Trinidadian, whose wife is a Trinidadian, I’m a Caribbean man to the core. Patrick and I, Patrick, one of his grand parents is a Vincentian, we can’t talk about St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago working closer with one another? Sometimes our minds are so limited and leadership is so lacking...why are Patrick and I doing this, because St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a ‘basket case’ and I want Trinidad money and Patrick want Vincentian votes. How may Vincentians come to vote in Trinidad? It caused immense damage, not to me because I can answer that kind of folly as I’m answering here but for people who look to certain individuals for leadership and get that kind of nonsense. It sets all of us back in the process of further ennobling our civilization, which is one of our challenges.
Now let me say this, today the economies of Trinidad and Tobago and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are more integrated than ever before, and they are more integrated to the disadvantage of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The manufacturing base in Trinidad and Tobago was built to a substantial degree by export of goods to the OECS countries and to Barbados, that’s a fact. Right at the moment as I speak, financial institutions in Trinidad and Tobago are owed over $200 million U.S. by governments of the OECS. The bulk of the money, taken up in the countries themselves, by the financial institutions of Trinidad and Tobago. The National Insurance schemes and Social Security money are taken at 5% - 5½% and are lent back to us at 9% - 12%. We are in the periphery and Trinidad is the metropolis in financial relationships, and yet, you have this foolishness being spoken... I want Trinidad money. The financial institutions in Trinidad and Tobago are already taking the money from St. Vincent and the Grenadines and lending it back to us at a higher rate of interest; in the same way that there is an extraordinary movement of capital from the developing countries to the United States of America (which is one of the reasons why you have low rates of direct private foreign investment in the developed countries, simply because there is an excess of it going to the United States of America). That is the phenomenon of the process of globalization. Of course, what Vincentians get out of the relationship is that there are Vincentians and Grenadians in Lavantille, and in Morvant, but as I understand the PNM doesn’t need more votes there. But you get this generalized fair, I am not getting involved in the politics of Trinidad and Tobago, make that plain because Patrick is my friend and Basdeo is also my friend. But, it is my duty to answer propositions by responsible leaders which hold back the struggles of Caribbean people for a deepening of their unification and the further ennoblement of our civilization.
A challenge of the Trade Union movement, clearly, is how to fashion solidarity within and across national boundaries to deal with the issue of globalization. And since I’m on the subject, I want to say this, the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines assigned, through me, the Declaration of Convexity, which includes the support for the principle of the free trade area of the Americans. I support that principle in the same way that I support the principle of motherhood, but the manifestation of motherhood is an entirely different question. There are some persons, who are quite capable of being mothers and the motherhood, when it is manifested, in some cases its one person and in other cases, not so. I will wait until I see the details of the Treaty or the Agreement of the Free Trade area of the Americas before St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be part of the FTA. In other words, we are supportive of the principle. Currently there are negotiations on the textual language and that is when we will consider it. Rest assured that the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will not sign onto any agreement unless it is in the interest of the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Now a further challenge arises from globalization, the challenge brought about by information technology. What is the most profound political consequence of the spread of Information Technology, the ‘revolution’? I’m not dealing with the economic consequence of the swift movement of capital across boundaries, because capital moved across boundaries before, but its swiftness has been facilitated by information technology. That has influenced the politics but what I’m talking about here is the direct political consequence of Information Technology and which the union and every single one of us has to deal with, because it addresses questions of governance.
The spread of Information Technology has broken down hierarchies. The hierarchies have been broken down in the Union, in businesses, in media houses, in the family, in the states’ political system because information, more information is more readily available. You no longer have to go to Errol Mc Leod to find out what is happening in the world of economics; you go on the ‘Net’. You don’t have to listen to Ralph Gonsalves, you can get the information, and it’s available to all of us. And the breakdown of hierarchies has raised the demand for people to be involved in decision making and for civil society to be more active participants in the political process. Now that is an extraordinarily difficult task, where states like ours in the Caribbean, which have come out of colonialism, and which have a gubernatorial commandist form of government, are seeking to rule in the old way. Whereas, the people are saying, “We are dissatisfied with the rule in the old way and we want a new way. We want greater participation because the hierarchies have broken down”, and many political leaders in the Caribbean have yet to understand that simple yet fundamental point that the days of the Commandist State are over. We now have to be open, transparent and participatory and you have to manage that properly, otherwise one set will go and then another set and they will be cycling them and recycling them and that is what is happening. Unfortunately, with the cycling and the recycling, many terrible things happened in the Caribbean and this is a challenge. Comrade Mc Leod spoke about it.
It’s time for the management of the political process and the old commandist ways are no longer possible. You can’t hide things anymore, you can hide them for a while but they eventually come out. Because the commandist state in the Caribbean, historically, since universal adult suffrage has been manned by the sons and daughters of the working people and of the middle class. Caribbean politicians by and large do not have a history of owning wealth. They own no banks, insurance companies, manufacturing enterprises; they do not own large tracts of land. They have not a history of managing personal wealth and therefore, when the run of the mill Caribbean politician gets into the commandist state system, he sees the state as the medium through which he must acquire wealth (since he does not have a history of owning wealth). And it ties very much with capital from overseas when they want to penetrate, because capital, when they come in, provide their inducements, so there is a relationship between those who wish to use the state to build their own personal position of wealth, and those who enter in an order that they can extract wealth. Speed is of the essence because many persons have to steal, not only as much as they can, but also as fast as they can because of the imperatives of electoral politics; you do not know whether you’re going to be there when the tide returns. These things are not happening by accident in the Caribbean.
There are however, a number of politicians in the region who are very honest and who do not get caught into that particular situation. I am making a broad objective analysis as I see the situation in the Caribbean. But that is an issue, clearly, one which is a challenge. Now, you cannot speak of good governance and not be completely unalterably opposed to official corruption because corruption redistributes wealth from the poor to the rich, that is its function. If there is no redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, by way of corruption, that money will be there to be used for the poor. Whereas progressive income tax is a redistributive mechanism of wealth from the rich to the poor, corruption intervenes as a countervailing redistributive mechanism of taking wealth from the poor. And that is something which is objective and it is there for many of us. If it reflects enough, we will see it. I want to say that the changes, which have taken place in the OECS, the deepening of integration, close from division of the Caribbean as one people. I know when you say that, very often people say that it is ‘old hat’, it may be ‘old hat’ but it is true nevertheless, and it is our inescapable destiny to deepen our integration with one another. We are doing it in the OECS.
As you know I have been put in charge of the primeministerial sub-committee on deeper union in the OECS. I know many of you there listening to me are asking, “Comrade Ralph, where are you going with that?” It’s a great cause and great causes have never been won by doubtful men and women. On this matter I have no doubt because the Caribbean is a unique civilization and it is the only counter-weight in the contemporary setting, in this region, to speak of the Caribbean civilization. It’s the only counter-weight to new fangled imperialism. You may say, “What you talking about imperialism, there is nothing like that anymore”. Well I say to you, from the moment that saturation and reganism had triumphed in the United States and in Britain, and by extension, triumphed in the universities of the western world, including the University of the West Indies, from the time you had termination of the Cold War and the collapse of centrally planned regimes, international capitalism began to push, more openly, for a new imperialism. The factotum of Prime Minister Blair was bold enough to write about this in a journal in the United Kingdom. It has been written about in the ‘Wall Street Journal’ and the ‘Financial Times’ and two months ago I read an article on the subject of foreign affairs. One of the important journals was in the ‘Liberal American Establishment’ where a man wrote an article calling for new imperialism under the title, ‘Reluctance Imperialism’. They are saying that it is only a new imperialism, which can provide order in the current disorderly world. What are we going to use conceptually as a counter-weight? We cannot use the old categories of anti-imperialism, we have to ‘ground’ something within ourselves, and that something I call, our Caribbean civilization.
We look at our people, our real flesh and blood, and we’re a unique, distinctive civilization. We are the only civilization in the world, which is an island civilization, which has almost entirely migrant population, which is almost predominantly non-white. The United States is a migrant civilization but it is continental and it is largely Caucasian. From the ruins of slavery and indentureship we have built societies of more or less stable democracies of tolerance, we have strengths. We have them in our intellectual capacity, in our artists, our scientists, our spokesmen and spokeswomen and our business people. We have had them, yes, among our politicians, but not as many as we ought to have had. This civilization is not European, it is not African, it is not Asian, it is distinctly Caribbean, as I put it metaphorically, ‘We are the sounds of the Caribs, the Arawaks and the Amerindians, we are the rhythm of Africa, we are the melody of Europe, we are the cause of Asia, Indian, Chinese and others and we’re the home-grown lyrics of the Caribbean. Set in a specific, geographic seascape and landscape where our presence is something more than energy and will, because it permanent and therefore, we are not in anybody’s backyard’. We are, perhaps, in their front yard. It is this notion which brings from our history, our culture, our experiences and which is alive today in our Labour Day Queen and in Errol Mc Leod and in the men and women of the Oilfields Worker’s Trade Union. It is non-ideological in the traditional sense, but it is ideational, ready for combat with globalization. To accommodate it where it needs to be accommodated but not to ‘roll over and play dead’, to resist it where it is in our interest so to do and to be creative in our resistance.
We, in the OECS, I give an example, we went to Libya. Why? I remember when we went to Libya, some other Caribbean leaders said we were going to sell our souls, we will incur the wrath of the United States of America. All sorts of things were expected to come upon us. I didn’t go to Libya to be changed by Gadaffi any more than I went to Libya to change Gadaffi. I was not going to become an apostle with the ‘Green Book’, no, and I didn’t expect to convert Gadaffi to social democracy or liberal democracy, no. We went there to enlarge our space, political and economic, as befitting an independent authentic civilization. I didn’t go there because of anti-Americanism, no, Gadaffi has his problems with the U.S. and the U.S. has their problems with Gadaffi. That’s their problem. We are seeking to enlarge our economic and political space in the interest of our own humanization. Why should people feel in any way that we are going to be changed by other people? Do we not have confidence in our democracy, which is mature, over fifty years? I certainly don’t need lessons in democracy from anybody, coming from St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Caribbean. I do not have racial profiling in my country. I do not have endemic systemic corruption in city governments in my country. There are no controls on the press in my country, none whatsoever. I can run an election without pregnant chants and goodwill chants and have a clear cut declaration as to who is Victor. It doesn’t have to go to the Supreme Court to decide who wins an election. I do not need lessons in democracy from anyone, it doesn’t make my democracy superior to anyone else’s but it certainly doesn’t make it inferior. Since the strength arises from the democracy of our civilization, what is it? You can’t trust the leaders; they’re not mature enough?
I have been involved in politics for thirty-four years, and without wishing to boast, have been in the best universities that the world has in the Caribbean, in England and in Africa. Before I became Prime Minister, I traveled the whole world. I am no better than any leader in Europe or North America, but I am no worse. So, on what basis are you seeking to limit my stroke of action? I’m not talking here of sovereignty, because to speak sovereignty would be to be dispensive. I’m speaking in an affirmative manner about my civilization and the products they are from. That is why this civilization, in its political expression, must be properly led.
Leadership becomes critical, particularly as you are moving from commandist state systems into systems that involve greater participation. What kind of leadership will you require? A leadership that first of all, analyses the strengths and weaknesses, possibilities and limitations of the people who are being led, and not simply to inspire because it is easy to inspire with arousing speech. Out of all kinds of mobilization symbols, that’s important, leadership, above all else, must draw out of the people, that which is good and noble in them to draw out of them sometimes, that which is good which they themselves do not as yet know that they possess. That is the hallmark of leadership, not to play to people’s fears of one race against another. The domination of one cultural group by another, one island against another, no, those are the backward notions of commandist regimes and commandist politicians whose time has passed. We need the clear side to the analysis, we need a philosophy, we need a framework for action, a certainty as to how you are proceeding but that certainty, having been arrived at through democratic discussion and debate, and finally, a leadership which not only inspires but draws out of the people that which is good and noble in them and to draw out very often, that which is good which they themselves do not as yet know that they possess. This takes time and sometimes we want to be too instant in the region. We have to be more measured and more balanced.
A poet from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, now deceased, was a lawyer, Danny Williams, addresses the question of time in a remarkable poem entitled ‘ We are the ..................’. He said, ‘We are all time, only the future is ours to desecrate. The present is the past and the past, our father’s mischief, only the future is ours to desecrate’. Let us therefore, with the OWTU and the people of the Caribbean, resolve tonight, in the quiet certitude of our souls. You have heard my words, heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter. Thank you and may God bless you.