OWTU SPEAKS 2004-06-30
It Is Our View.
We know that the debate had only just begun, and, if all members of the lower house are in fact going to contribute then there are thirty – one of them still to catch the speaker’s eye and take the floor on the Police Reform Bills. But from the look of things so far and up to the close of play last evening, the opposition side has failed to impress and there is precious little to be expected form its fourteen remaining players still to remonstrate, with the exception perhaps of its better abled practitioners – Panday, the senior one I mean, Persad Bissessar and Dookeran. But even there it is unlikely that a disaster will be averted. Indeed, excuses – feeble and premature are already being spouted. Talk about one wanting a ‘show down’ with the other sounds so much like Gun Fight at the OK Corall, Battle at Boot Hill, High Noon just to name a few of the long time ‘bad boy westerns’. But the apparent tired and dead panned leader of the opposition is more like Gun Smoke, cornered and out-foxed in his own Zaire.
One expected t see a battle royal of a debate aimed at effecting country – interest provisions to enable better order and organization for a safer and peaceful national community. These may still be realized but there is such equivocation – there are so many conjectures. It was also expected that the contributors to the debate will inform and edify. The member for St. Joseph failed miserably; the Pointe – a – Pierre MP fell terribly short of the poignancy of feminine flavour which a well learned and polished woman is expected to contribute; and Mr. Jeremy happens to be uninteresting.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-06-18
It’s Our View.
Tomorrow, all roads lead to Fyzabad! Tomorrow, at Charlie King Junction, we rekindle the spirit of the martyrs, then determinedly struggling for Bread, Peace and Justice in 1937. They had determined that they had no choice but to struggle. Tomorrow, we shall attempt to struggle. Tomorrow, we shall attempt a transposition of that 1937 spirit, to all who are today crying out and struggling for Bread. Peace and Justice and especially those who have been misled and disappointed and are questioning – “why struggle?” Well, to those we are very likely to advise that the only alternative to struggle is more determined and fearless struggle. Tomorrow, June 19th, BUTLER DAY, National Labour Day, Fyzabad Day – is one Struggle, one March, one Platform – anything else is a mamaguy – a sham. 1937 was serious business. The OWTU was born out of the serious business of 1937. And we will welcome all tomorrow at Charlie King Junction, Fyzabad where it all started in 1937.
Yes, tomorrow we will celebrate our recent victories – and they are indeed not insignificant. We will bemoan our setbacks too and commiserate with and extend solidarity to all those who are heavily burdened – locked out workers whose leadership is hand – in – glove with the employer and who has all but abandoned the locked out workers; workers whose conditions are so deplorable that except for uniformed attire one has difficulty telling Jailor from Prisoner; workers employed in Essential State Services and whose important terms and conditions of employment and levels of remuneration are denied the essential treatment that they should receive; Retired Workers and Public Officials whose inflation – denuded pensions have reduced them to near beggars; the unemployed and under-employed. Tomorrow we march against the injustices perpetrated against all workers and the poor in society. We march against crime and the social, moral and spiritual decay that has transcended Trinidad and Tobago. We will rally against the corruption, backward politics of division and separatism and rekindle the spirit of unity and struggle for Bread, Peace and a Just and moral society.
Come to Fyzabad tomorrow! Our Butler march starts promptly at 10:00 am from Avocat Junction. Our butler Rally begins at 1:00pm and our Butler Cultural Extravaganza begins at 3:45pm. All roads lead to the foundation of the thing! Don’t miss it! Come and be counted!
The OWTU welcomes you on behalf of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and NGO’s.
OWTU Forever – STRUGGLING for Peace, Bread, Justice and a better Trinidad and Tobago. I am President General, Errol McLeod with……
It’s Our View.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-06-16
It’s Our View….
That
The enactment of the Police Service Bill, the Police Complaints Authority Bill and the Constitution Amendment Bill may well be essential to dealing with the crime spiral that has now engulfed the country. But, would those three pieces of legislation by themselves realize the objective of crime reduction and greater subscription to lawful behavior and decency. What, when lawlessness has permeated the society to the extent that it has been allowed to go? What when graft and corruption at high levels, had taken on the psychology of a cultural trait with identified Rogue Elephants stampeding their way through State Enterprises and now shamelessly trumpeting their hypocrisy and deceit through cronies from one political soap box or another? And the country is threatened by the announced prospect of the culpable re-emerging to positions of authority and power.
The political rot and moral decay had transcended to the point where miscreant operatives behaved as though guided by a motto which said “Thief today as though there is no tomorrow”.
What is the relevance of this to the question of the criminal and violent action of murder, rape, mugging, gun running and drugs, and the kidnapping pandemic?
In our view it is obvious!
If the father is seen by the son to be transgressing with impunity all of the boundaries of reasonable human behavior – the father is then disqualified from exercising sanctions on how the son proceeds, and the son is emboldened to disregard rules and regulations. This analogizes the patterns that are set in relationships between national leaders in al spheres of our existence:-
The politician in government and the party members and citizens; the principal / teacher and the student in the class room; the official who has taken an oath to protect and serve and the misguided small time misdemeanant; those who posses in over- abundance and the dispossessed. And it becomes malignant and sclerotic when it is the principal and leader in the relationship who abrogates. Further, it is always with reluctance that new medicine is endorsed when old prescriptions have been untried and denied.
There seems an unexplained trepidation on the part of the new guards to how the book and open the cells to the old errant guards who have precipitated the emboldening of the agents of terror by their own commission of grave malfeasance.
It is our view! We behave today like a formerly good people who have drifted too far from their moorings. We need to revert to basic tenets and foundations. Not by 2020 but now. OWTU invites all who are weary and heavily burdened to join with Progressive Labour and Patriotic Trade Unionism on the March from Avocat to Charlie King Junction Fyzabad on June 19, BUTLER DAY, Saturday coming.
Forward to a more ethical Trinidad and Tobago.
Be there to be counted.
Let us rekindle the spirit, unity and resolve of 1937.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-06-11
It is our view that those who filibuster with political quid pro quos on the issues to effect a comprehensive assault against crime and lawlessness are, by their omission, encouraging the criminal and violent spiral that is plaguing the society. There seems a crippling tendency in the body politic to throw up one’s hands in despair against the truculent societal-life-and –death challenges posed by the criminal and other destabilizing forces in our country. The government seems without teeth to mobilize and effect those resources currently at its disposal, while the opposition bares its gum against any support for new operational, administrative, political and legislative measures aimed at a comprehensive and sustained attack against the debilitating criminal and lawless tendencies now bestriding our local landscape.
Two nights ago, the acting Attorney General appealed to whatever influence conscionable citizens may be able to exert on lawmakers to bring about a bipartisan approach to the legislative process in so far as the national interest, public safety and security are concerned.
It is our view that only the unconscionable politician who himself belongs to a miscreant gang of criminals, would without his support for measures calculated to apprehend the lawless and curb criminal activity in the country.
It is our view the it is a vagabond of a politician who would refuse to support measures to ameliorate the incidence of criminal activity of which he complains his supporters are the main victims. And no precondition to his commitment to supporting a determined and sustained comprehensive assault on today’s criminal pandemic should allow him to go unscathed. Indeed, the less than usually very articulated conversations and vacuous protestations should cause the knowledgeable, suspicious and intelligent to look beyond the rabble. Constitution Reform, as important and necessary as it is – and we were the first to call for it – might be just a fig leaf behind which some are hiding. It is our view that the real story and precondition could be a possible behind the scenes demand for a halt to some ungoing investigations into certain questionable transactions and prosecution of persons likely to be charged in public office.
We are perhaps dreaming here and can be thought of as being highly speculative but that is only because we have had a period of social relationships when some persons seemed to have allowed their enthusiasm for office and power to drive them into realms of grave indiscretion against the public interest. We are a lot poorer psychologically for it and the criminals have been strengthened and have become bolder because of it.
It is our view that a refusal to support measures to curb crime and violence is just another dishonest means of politically protesting against all protests against lawlessness and disorder. We must resolve to bear truthful allegiance to the interest of all our people before any defense of our individual self interests.
It is our view and I am Errol McLeod for the OWTU born out of struggle begun in Fyzabad to which all roads lead on June 19.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-06-02
It Is Our View….
Years ago, we defined the scab as the spineless jelly-back with a full blown tumor where normal man contained a brain. I must have a search done for that definition as I am sure that the lizard either slipped in beneath the employer’s fence under the cover of darkness or was given sage conduct by armed guards and police whom the employer would, in those days of real struggle, have provided with some boy-scout-measured pecuniary reward. When one thought that that nonsense was done and in the past we see with great consternation, toad like lumpen characters rushing through picket lines, striking-arm upraised, cutlass at the ready, desperate by the hunger, greed and hustle of the corridor to make a twelve hours for the price of a pint of beer. How capital will have us kill each other to protect and serve capital. And the goodly uniformed men-keepers of the peace and defenders of the la-see nothing, say nothing, do nothing. what a shame and blatant demonstration as to the ‘INTEREST’ which is really protected and served. If so glaring and blatant a cutlass wielding situation would escape unscathed what can we expect of those responsible for the detection, apprehension and solution of the many crimes that are committed after the sun goes down? It is most interesting how the system can be triggered to acceptable levels of operation in some areas and in others we seem to be hum strung be inertia. It must be also interesting to learn that the cryogenic process, through which our natural gas is treated to transform it into LNG to make it exportable, could also be applied to foreign jurisdictions and allegedly gained by corrupt means, to freeze such assets to avoid their movement by their beneficiaries. By the size of it, if assets from others suspect deals, transactions and malfeasant whealings, in other banks in Kensington, the Isle of Man, Switzerland and other parts of Europe and North America are to be given the cryogenic treatment it seems like we’ll need a massive deep freeze indeed. And if all of the loot can be legally repatriated and put to people benefiting use, we might well find that therein are some means to remedy the plight of the desperate unemployed capitalist abused scab at the locked-out workers’ picket line.
But there is comforting news too. It is not all sad stories. Danielle Jones won many minds and hearts for Trinidad and Tobago last night. To romp home in fifth place among so many of the most beautiful women in the universe is a great accomplishment. Danielle did us proud. One can only imagine how much more outstanding she would have been had she not hit her head that first time. Have a good evening.