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OWTU SPEAKS DECEMBER

2007 12 03

Good evening and welcome to OWTU Speaks.   Valene Maharaj has done Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean proud.  And her identification among the five most beautiful women in the world could not have come at a more timely and appropriate moment for Trinidad and Tobago – a moment when a balm and perhaps special prayers were needed to soothe the pain of murder and mayhem, road carnage, maiming and malady, political misdirection and executive arrogance which seem to have gripped our land.

Valene not only equaled and surpassed the physical attributes of some of the finalists in the competition, the consummate ease and confidence with which she treated with the MC’s questions stood her out as being also intelligent, acute-minded and discerning.  Our national community was also done proud by another attractive young woman – this time in the pugilists’ ring.

Jisselle Salandy is a skillful but sadly mismanaged boxer who did well to out-box and out-point a heavier, more experienced and punishing pugilist.   Jisselle seems to have so far been denied proper socialization which should do something for her self representation and educated articulation of her craft to the extent that she escapes at least, the sleaze and the exploitation of the very crafty handles, cut throat and corner men and promoters in the sport.

But our local princess of the ring pounded out a unanimous points decision on the stone of an opponent who was like a rock needing a heavy hammer to be toppled.

Well done Jisselle!

The OWTU Speaks salutes, congratulates and expresses appreciation to Valene Maharaj and Jisselle Salandy for lifting our national identity above the level of the killing fields whose graves continue to beacon our youth.

Have a safe evening.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks!

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 12 07

Good evening and welcome to the OWTU Speaks!

It was reported by the PM’s office that Caricom Heads, attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala recently, agreed that “a special session would be convened to address the issues of high and rising food prices, affecting the Caricom Community.  And that there is a belief by the Heads that food prices are largely affected by international conditions and thus, a coordinated and collective approach to alleviating the problem would be of benefit to the region.  Caricom Heads are today meeting in Guyana as we speak.

Caricom Heads are meeting today to identify ways by which we may address our own Caribbean interests in a world that cares for the islands no more.  Today, our leaders are only now beginning to address just one of the issues which are a legacy of our colonial past and largely maintained in our post independence, neocolonial experience – only now, eighty one years after the way was pointed to carving out our own West Indian economic and political space.

In 1926. It was our early labour leaders who first addressed the absolute necessity for our West Indian people to develop a march to self government, independence and federation for the establishment of what they called our West Indian Nation.  They articulated then, a clear vision as to where we would be positioned and how we would manage our own policies and how we would superintend and exploit our space for our socio-economic development.

Our early labour leaders identified the essential pillars on which we should build our West Indian existence – they were Trinidad’s Oil and Gas, Jamaica’s Bauxite, Barbados’ more efficient sugar manufacturing and lime stone, Windward Islands’ Textiles and Guyana’s extensive land mass for food and agriculture and our common waters teeming with fish.  This was no skewed fifteen year tunnel visioned idea of a developed nation status for any of our islands with only enough room for two banana plants and squalid barrack abodes.  This was a vision which we would have realized today had the mission not been surrendered, too often, to those whose leadership has instead essentially served the interest of international capital.  Before independence we would have been determined by our colonial owners to satisfy their subscription to international trade. And we would have consumed what they determined to be our diet.

In our post independence era we continue to support a neocolonial system which refuses to dismantle the old exploitative order and which bares the stark reality that we live in a cruel world that don’t need the islands no more.  When do we truly come together and see about ourselves?  It is food prices, energy prices, prices of essential materials and services – all of them manipulated and controlled by the powerful of the North, united in the interest of international capital.  What is the South waiting for?

EPA is stifling us, FTAA is dead and Caricom is drifting aimlessly in the waters.  Would labour arise?

A safe weekend is achievable if we show care and attach value for life and human well-being.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 12 10

Good evening and welcome to the OWTU Speaks!

Another worker has bitten the dust!  Our lives continue to be at stake!  There are many work-related accidents, incidents and near misses which are not reported and some covered up.  The ones which are made known are those which the employer cannot hide.  Which ever they are however, accidents do not just happen – they are caused!  Faulty systems, negligent persons – commonly management -, human failures and ignorance – are the causes of most accidents.  Every fatality in industry over the past fifteen and recent years can be pointed in those directions.  The management objective has been to employ the cheapest means to effect the highest possible production and financial results – cut costs, cut corner, meet today’s market demands, do it quicker, higher contractor labour instead – that is their mantra.  But this has been pointed out to be the most cockey-eyed, short sighted, longer-term-expensive and unsustainable objective.  It is penny wise and pound foolish and in some cases even criminal.  We are killing ourselves and destroying our myopic subscription to price and repudiation of value. We continue to make many strides backwards and thus stretch immeasurably, our journey to 2020 and whatever might be held in store for us then – the few who may be spared the carnage on our roads; the mismanagement and unsafe practices and dangerous conditions in industry and the scourge of drugs and gun running in our communities.  Our lives are at stake now more than ever before!

We will not prejudice the investigations now on-going into yesterday’s fatality at Petrotrin’s Pointe a Pierre Refinery, Catalytic Reforming Unit nor will we predict the findings in the report.  What we can assure however is that we will demand that the cause and circumstances which wrought Adonis’ death must never again be reported.

The OWTU extends its sympathy and condolence to the family and relatives of Finbar Adonis.

I am Errol McLeod for the OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 12 14

Good evening, Season’s Greetings and welcome to the OWTU Speaks!

Amid the Jingle Bells and Kiss Me for Christmas happy go lucky season that is upon us, our people here and in the Caribbean are blissfully unaware that our silent demise is being quietly orchestrated in Economic Partnership Agreement currently being negotiated between the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) and the European Union.  The European Union is insisting that Caricom concludes those negotiations by December 31, 2007 i.e. seventeen (17) days from today.

The agreement which the EU seems to be dictating and which neo-colonial Caribbean governments are likely to accept will have multiple deleterious effects on our Caribbean development, our intra and extra regional trade even in those markets that have become traditional; - deleterious effects on our already inadequate and underdeveloped food and agriculture sector, manufacturing and services sectors.  It is death – it is a slow death that the Economic Partnership Agreement will mean to us in the Caribbean and Africa.  And these negotiations are being done unknowing to the people.  Even our leaders in business are oblivious to the dark shadows that lurk in the sphere of our economic existence.  The government certainly has abandoned its obligation to inform and consult with the people in these regards.

We are pleased that our Federation of Independent Unions and NGO’s (FITUN) has had some eye opening discussions on the EPA with FITUN member units over the past month or so.  And we are particularly pleased that the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) is mounting a four session National Consultation involving inputs from Eric Leopold Edwards of Trans-Africa and Remigus Kintu of Uganda.

The OWTU identifies with this NJAC initiative and encourages members of all Trade Unions to attend and become more aware of and participate in the important issues pertaining to the unfriendly Economic Partnership Agreement. Have a safe Friday evening and an enjoyable weekend.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 12 17

Good evening, compliments of the season and welcome to the OWTU Speaks!

The long delayed opening of our 9^th Parliament seems to have taken place today with one side unsure about a well defined agenda and the other, making declarations of war clenching their fists and impolitely refusing to shake hands.  But that is their business – of course!  We are interested in finding out how much are the two sides might be prepared to stand together to defend Trinidad and Tobago’s national interest and that Caricom against the bullying of the European Union in the negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement with the CARIFORUM group of states – i.e. Caricom and the Dominican Republic.  News is that those negotiations ended last night and were initialed by the teams of negotiators but are to be ratified over the next several months by the governments of the Cariforum group of states.

What did the negotiators agree and initial?  What are we likely to ratify – Our economic strangulation? The OWTU salutes the NJAC on its hosting of consultations on the EPA so that the ordinary man and woman may have some information as to their plight at the hands of unequal partners in business on trade and services!

The EU proposed EPAs are essentially free trade agreements that Europe is seeking to sign with the ACP group of countries. Under the deal, ACP countries would be required to open their economies even wider from EU imports.  Specifically, the EU proposals will remove tariffs on European products imported into ACP markets, allow European companies and investors to enter any sector of the local economy and demand to be treated equal, if not better, than domestic enterprises.  The EPA will also prevent ACO governments from adopting policies to promote and support domestic investors, businesses and farmers.

The EPAs are not being negotiated in a true spirit of partnership.  For example, CARICOM like other members of the ACP, is being hurried to liberalise at least 80% of its imports over a fifteen year period.

There will be a reduction of market share for CARICOM goods.  Less domestic products will be sold in the region.

In T & T the manufacturing sector exports a significant percentage of its products to CARICOM.  In practical terms, companies that export, for example, cleaning agents garments, food and beverages that depend on CARICOM protection can be affected to the point where production cuts can result directly in job losses for the many workers who depend on the success of companies in the manufacturing sector.

Import duty and trade tariffs account for a significant amount of Government Revenue in countries of the Eastern Caribbean.  In these countries the government is also a large employer (just as in Trinidad and Tobago).  With a fall in Government Revenue due to loss of import charges the ability of consumers in the Caribbean to buy products in general and from Trinidad and Tobago will be affected.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks!

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 12 19

Good evening, Seasons Greetings and welcome to OWTU Speaks.  We too are interested in the Education Minister’s response to the Opposition Leader’s question regarding the claim that On – the – Job Trainees in the Education Ministry are conducting classes across the nation’s schools.  Of course we expect the Ministry of Education, School Principals and Appointed Teaching Staff to recognize the very important pedagogical requirement which the OJT’s do not yet possess and the absence of which may maim the necessary development process of those whom the system must teach and to whom essential knowledge and cultural inclinations must be imparted.  We must not, and those who know better and are conscientious about the science of teaching, will not trust an OJT with the responsibility with the conduct of education classes however bright and enthusiastic the OJT might be.

The crux of the matter really resides in our philosophical understanding of the management and development of resources, cost control, value enhancement and organisation longevity.

Le us explain these high sounding terms as we examine what, in reality, is currently taking place, and not necessarily in our schools.

The On the Job Training System conceptually is sound but is not new.  The OJT System is a hybrid of the long time well tested and highly successful Apprenticeship Programme which the PNM, under Mr. Manning killed to the great disadvantage of youth development and human resource stock for industry and commerce in Trinidad and Tobago.  Our importation of Chinese and other sources of labour in the technical and skilled areas of occupation is evidence of the Manning underdevelopment thrust – a very damming indictment.

The State enterprises Sector, teen aged and other young men and women with little workplace knowledge and familiarity are made to replace highly skilled and experienced functionaries employed in decent well paying oppositions and displaced by the cost cutting instrument of VSEP and other coersive means of retrenchment from their jobs.  And the OJT’s exploited in more ways than just being awarded a stipend of $350 per week.  When the state enterprise sets such an atrocious example against nationals, the greedy private sector trumps and follows suit as a means of taking an enhanced bottom line to the bank.

But in the longer term we end up with willing untrained underpaid but less than fully productive functionaries.  If the OJT systems used for the effective training and development of tomorrow’s decently paid worker to do decent work and thereby make decent contributions national development and human resource capability, we should find it supportable as a development tool in the general societal construct.  Let us not make avoidable mistakes in education.

And have a safe evening.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks!

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 12 21

Before it gets lost in the maze of the loud ringing Jingle Bells, the heavy commercials, expensive and crazy last minute shopping, the OWTU Speaks extends today, every best wish for a holy, joyous and safer Christmas to all workers and citizens of Trinidad and Toabgo.

It is hoped that the holiday season will serve to bring families and communities closer together as one means by which we begin to address the serious social issues plaguing us all.  We are not the peace loving and cheerful people whom we once were, even when we struggled with more meager economic and financial means.  We see an absence of friendliness as we encounter each other at the shopping malls, on the street and as we traffic the roadways.  We seem to have repudiated the reason for Christmas and the everyday love and affection which the birth of Christ would have ushered in all the world.

Today we are angry, we are so hurry that we are most times running away from ourselves, we are bitter – we have fallen to the lowest level of the Animal kingdom.

Institutions are collapsing under the weight of the greed, power and influence of those who wish to rule kingdoms and states.  Principles and ordinary good manners are abandoned for the quick fixes and immediate solutions.  But this is not intended to be any epistle either so we’d better stop here and just call for reflection, introspection and renewal.

Best wishes to all for a really Peaceful, Joyous and Happy Yuletide season.

I am Errol Mc Leod for OWTU Speaks.

OWTU SPEAKS 2007 12 31

Good Evening and special holiday greetings and welcome to the OWTU Speaks!

We take permission to make small changes and do some transpositions on HW Longfellow’s famous Poem – ‘The Day Is Done”

‘The year is done

And the darkness of death, obliterates

The life of light and prosperity

As the murder’s trigger reverberates

The power of guns’ and drugs’ insanity.

2007 has seen us run divided and without direction.  Politicians, Priests and Princes have all been more concerned and possessed with securing their own provinces of power, pulpit and principalities than they have been with the well-being of the people, parishioners and subjects.  Trinidad and Tobago had never been worse off even in those hard times of green fig and salt.  We have grown tremendously in the economic sphere but we have, at the same time peddled backwards into social under-development and at the brink of barbarism.  The economic indices by which our performance is measured are challenged only by the statistics of the senseless killings and other criminal atrocities which mar our social landscape and body politic. Our Oil and Gas financial fortunes, our enviable GDP and GNP representations are the masks behind which our almost total lack of management and leadership hide – management and leadership at the macro national level of the society.

Imbalances in wealth and income distribution have been an unsettling and worrisome issue in the relationships between those who govern and manage on the one hand and those who work and are dependant on the other.

Arrogance, self righteousness and self anointments to rulership of a divided kingdom have exacerbated the retrogressive post-Reagan/Thatcher 1980’s social settlements which we have endured.

Prices have blown their cover to effect a recovery of all that might have escaped capital’s grummy claws.  And an anti-worker Public Sector Negotiating Committee here insists on stymieing the Collective Bargaining Process by arbitrarily and unilaterally effecting an unrealistic ceiling on salaries and wages.

Unless there would be a mature, selfless and objective re-arrangement and approach to addressing all of these and the many other issues affecting the country, things do not bode comfortably for Trinidad and Tobago in the next years to 2011.

But still, we are among the not too bad places to be, if one considers the happenings in many other parts of the world – some of them with homogeneous societies.  We must make our space the best it could be with the not inconsiderable resources over which we have command.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said – ‘I see the lights of the village, Gleam through the rain and the mist, and a feeling of sadness comes o’er me, That my soul cannot resist.  A feeling of sadness and longing that is akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only, As the mist resembles rain.”

We pray that God’s blessings will rain on T & T in 2008 and beyond; that our sorrow and sadness this night will give way to happiness and joy to-morrow morning; that the lights of the village will assist our navigation of this country to the Peaceful, Secure, Productive, Prosperous and best place in the world that it can be.

I am Errol Mc Leod for the OWTU Speaks.