OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-31
WILL WAGE AND SALARY INCREASES AFFECT INFLATION?
That I am neither an economist nor one pretending knowledge of the science of economics makes me comfortable and my job a little less stressful and burdensome. And my determination helps me to be oblivious, sometimes, to the vacillations and, more often than not, conjecturable and obfuscator theses that our better known Economists of both fine and minute minds and those with no minds at all – are given to articulating.
In the face of all the evidence to the contrary, they insist that wage and salary increases in the domestic economy and at the lower levels of the economy will cause food prices to rise and effect an inflationary spiral. Their argument is bought line, hook and sinker by the Employers Organisations which sponsor the skewed theses and by Government in the interest and defense of international capital and the Multinational Corporations.
The Government took for its members an average 67% in salary increases and perquisites – there was no admonition on price increases and inflation. The big jefes in the Financial and Financial Services Sector have for years been creaming – off the resources under their control and have been receiving salaries and perquisites way in excess of the emoluments paid to their counter part CEO’s and Managers in other important sectors – and there is no flag waving about price increases and inflation. State Enterprise CEO’s and Mangers and their counter parts in the local private sector have had their packages handsomely adjusted to retain their services and to meet the challenges of the competition locally and regionally – no talk of price increases and inflation.
Indeed, recent increases in food and other prices.- flour, chicken, steel – are all imported – and obviously passed on to the local consumers and workers whose wages and salaries the government is instructed to suppress at the barest minimum level.
They tell their unemployed and indigent party hacks and who ever else will listen that wage increases will make handouts and public assistance more difficult to come by and living more unbearable. At the same time they protect more profits to leave our shores by ensuring low wages, lower taxes on foreign owner operations and minimal local content in those operations and contracted projects.
They promise and commit cheap gas, water and electricity to the foreign private sector investors and when confronted with the workers demands for decent pay, they point to balance sheets and financial statements which are artificially and theoretically without balance and flawed.
We in the OWTU intend to escape the vortex of the skewed arguments of our fine minded economists and the unsupportable position dictated by the Inter Ministerial planners and Public Sector Negotiation Committee. We will let the dynamics of the bargaining process determine the way.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-24
LEGISLATE! WE CAN NOT NEGOTIATE.
It is unfortunate. It is indeed very unfortunate that on matters of workers’ incomes and the prices of goods and services, the government’s position continues to be influenced by the least informed of our most impractical and otherwise idle armchair economic soothsayers and political theorists.
“The heavens will fall in and the economy will collapse like West Indies Cricket” is their prediction on the institution of a decent and acceptable floor of wages rates and minimum conditions of employment for the workers in the constructions of employment for workers in the construction of energy heavy industrial plants.
“Do not legislate negotiate”, is their adamant stand even as they and their confederates frustrate and deny workers the realization of the essential mechanisms that facilitate negotiations and the collective bargaining process. “Negotiate, we will not Legislate!” they arrogantly insist today because the boot is squeezing the gas in some politician’s groin. Not so in 1965. The boot was on the other foot no certification and will was all that was required for negotiation and the speedy settlement of Disputes: And capital cried then “Legislate! We cannot negotiate.”
Thus the ISA and now the IRA, the R. R. & C. B and the greater exploitation of the ‘natives’ by renegade Bechtel International and mercenary local Sub-contractors. And among the confederates, there are the hustlers in labor, vintage political consorts in opportunism pimping and insidious. Only the workers will lose. It is not beyond the simpleton rabble rousers of the party to now campaign among the Train TV construction workers to make their own struggle unpopular after six weeks of life on the loaf for which they were forced to sign and accept on their date of employment. As for the work on the 56” Pipe Line project? The majority of them for culture reasons are reported to be happy with the $14 hr which they are paid and which represents 100% more than they were accustomed to receiving in or about geographical areas more Central of the country.
And top party operatives and their leaders have set about suggesting that raising those construction workers pay to decent levels will trigger an inflationary spiral that will cause food prices to increase. Nonsense! What cause price of chicken flour and transportation to move recently. All will deny that it was the 67% increase which the political directorate awarded themselves not too . And they deserved it.
Why not ordinary workers? But we are our own worst enemies. Yet I am as certain that we shall overcome as tomorrow will be another day.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-22
SECTORAL MINIMUM WAGE
Who ever the Prime Minister might name later this evening we wish the new Minister of Labour well. We anticipate that it will not be easy not in a touchy industrial relations climate exacerbated by the government reneging on important promises made by the Prime Minister himself. It can’t be easy. We pray though that labour is not saddled by Franklin Khan whose doltish utterances on the weekend suggest that the promise of a Sectoral Minimum Wage may well remain just that a promise to be made again perhaps at the next election campaign or to be implemented post LNG Trains 5 and 6 and the completion of all major construction at the La Brea Industrial Estate, when there will hardly be the remote incidence of a decent and reasonable wage paid to less than 1% of the labour force causing an inflationary upset of the national economy.
More claptrap and idiocy we have not heard from a spokesperson for government. I was intending to suggest that a grinning gargoyle would be most inappropriate for the Labour Minister until I was only just informed that Mr. Anthony Roberts has been named the new man at the Riverside Plaza. Of course we wish Mr. Roberts well and offer our assistance and co-operation in the promotion of modern standards and promotion of modern standards and productive industrial and human relations. We may be described as extravagant if we were to expect the Minister to be sympathetic and partial to labour and the Trade Unions. So we wish only that Mr. Roberts would refuse to bow to the every demand and dictate by the employer. In such a situation it is only the Prime Minister whom would be unhappy with Anthony. We really do hope that Mr. Roberts’ appointment will not be seen down the road as ‘moon walk’ i.e. looking ahead but moving backwards.
Mr. Roberts must jump in at the deep end of the cesspool of confusion created by his Prime Minister’s reneging on the promise of a Sectoral Minimum Wage for the Energy Construction industry contiguous with the liberalization of the provisions of the IRA relative to the Recognition and Certifications of Union Workers' Organizations even on temporary bases to facilitate the process of negotiations without interruption of the production process.
The problems at ALNG Train 4 and the 56’ Gas Line is more fundamental than the quick fix attempt that is now being made. And those problems have been made more complex by the intervention of known opportunists, quacks, pimps and other with self serving political and other agendas.
The OWTU continues to support the workers in this struggle but we however refuse to identify with those who consider representation of the workers and peoples interest to be just another hustle for narrow self interest.
There are too many games. The OWTU will not play.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-15
ALNG CONSTRUCTION WORKERS'
One shouldn’t be the least bit surprised at Larry Achong’s departure from the Patrick Manning Cabinet. It had to happen. Achong could not remain in the Cabinet, holding an impartial and independent line, as it is for the Minister of Labour like the Attorney General to do, and not offend Big Business interests and a compliant Prime Minister.
Mr. Achong held to principle on the matters of the Minimum Sectoral Wage and other pre-requisites to providing a level Labour/Management playing field in the contracted out energy construction sector and thereby earned the respect of Labour and the Unions. He correctly resigned from a Cabinet that is with a preponderance of business support and control, rather than be besmirched by the ignominy of being fired by a Prime Minister who loses his vocals as he does an about face on election promises. The laryngitic impediment feigned over the weekend was certainly not funny. And the advertised summary of pay rates purported to exist at the Bechtel construction of the LNG Train IV project is an attempt to misled the public and disguise the inferior remuneration levels and terms and conditions of employment at the Atlantic LNG construction site.
And it must be very clearly noted that following Bechtel’s advertisements on the weekend, hundreds of our police and military personnel were moved into the Point Fortin Community last night and this morning in no less than an insidious move to intimidate and coerce the long suffering workers back to their jobs without any amelioration of the conditions that forced their action in the first place.
It is less than acceptable for the pundits of business development, productivity and competitiveness to prescribe that the resolution of disputes be pursued through the process of negotiations and collective bargaining and not at the same time establish and preserve the mechanisms which would reasonably facilitate that process.
It is also most unacceptable that the government would assume a hands-off posture in the issue even as one remembers the Prime Minister’s election promise and while a platform of instability is becoming apparent in Trinidad and Tobago being a first choice supplier of the region’s energy requirements.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-12
FAIR PLAY, DECENT PAY AND MUTUAL RESPECT
BETWEEN BUSINESS AND LABOUR
Mr. Manning is wrong again. Mr. Manning is ever so wrong his not being clever and astute enough, it seems to discern and avoid his many incursions into the ridiculous.
The anointed one has brazenly demonstrated his preference for a confederation with big business and the parasitic oligarchy much the same as his immediate past predecessor in the office of Prime Minister. The one significant difference this time is the greater arrogance with Mr. Manning is dismissing the reasonable demands by Energy Construction Workers and his own Minister of Labour for fair play, decent pay and mutual respect in the social relationship between business and labour. These three pre-requisites for healthy Industrial Relations and therefore high productivity and competitiveness at Atlantic LNG do not now exist as the mechanisms to facilitate workers organization and recognition are slow, manipulated by business interests, ineffectively bureaucratic and designed to perpetuate the exploitation. Mr. Manning dismiss all these at the behest of the Business Chambers, the ECS and Richard Cape, ensconced no doubt, in the knowledge and belief that he faces no real challenge for the prize of political office as the official opposition has been condemned to pasture in the result of their own corrupt making never to rise again.
It must not be forgotten either that the Prime Minister’s repudiation today of his own proposal for a Sectoral Minimum Wages is as obnoxious and consistent with the opposition that the proposal received from certain sections of the Labor Movement that are today spewing fire and brimstone and announcing demonstrations and marches of sorts.
While we in the OWTU continue to fight our own causes and support the LNG Train 4 workers and others struggle we wish to make clear we wish to make superlatively clear we make it absolutely clear that we are not involved now nor will we be involved in any action aimed at satisfying the egos and ambition of the opportunists wishing to piggy back genuine struggles by the workers for decent pay and reasonable conditions.
And that decent pay for short term employment on LNG Train TV construction and the 56 Gas Line cannot heat up the economy and cause an inflationary spiral as the opponents to decent human conditions are bleating from their privileged positions. Better pay for those workers could only affect the huge profits that the Transnational Contractor and LNG Companies will repatriate from Trinidad and Tobago’s Oil and Gas Resources. We are convinced that it is those huge profit interests supported by their comprador minions in the ECA that have instructed Mr. Manning to abandon his election promise and his Minister of Labor who is perhaps the only bone in his cabinet to have held to principle and fair play.
Mr. Manning will hope that the workers all will forget this one as he reminds us of his trip to Nassau in 1994 when according to him, ‘only 60 laborers responded to the call to protest.’ What Honorable Prime Minister might wish to forget is that one year later in 1995 many times more than 60 workers refused to renew his mandate to rule.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Construction workers may not but I am sure that OWYU members will not harm the interests of Trinidad and Tobago injustices of Big Business and its arrogant political proponents.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-10
OWTU AND THE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS' STRUGGLE
Most rabble rousers do not read and the majority does not listen and hear very little. Two of them were heard this morning on this station’s ‘Public Eye Programme’. One complained that I have said nothing on the Train IV Construction Workers’ struggle and the other condemned what he considered to be my ignorance about the capital costs associated with the installation of LNG Plants. Both of them were wrong and perhaps deaf to the many interventions made by the OWTU on the issue of Jobs, Decent Job for all and also the proposed Minimum Wage for the Energy Construction Sector. Indeed, I have personally made no fewer than seven (7) extensive statements on those issues and expressed support and solidarity for those persons affected by them since last September with the most recent statement being last Monday, two days ago. But as I said, there are some who will babble many times more than they see and hear.
There are also the very cloistered and myopic ignoramuses who hide behind the few scriptural verses which would have been read to them over and over to make it stick. Such a one has written me under urgent cover advising that we all have to give account to God for what we say and do – and that is true. But madam Vivien went on to reprimand me for, as she stated’ always threating to shut down the country when this government, her government is in power’. Now, I am sure that the letter writer has not heard me threaten to shut down the country nor is she genuinely concerned about that. She thinks only about her government and her PNM like minions and sycophants of the other side are concerned only about their party never minding how either of the misgoverness are mashing up the damn place.
And Mrs. Patrick has the temerity to suggest that I need her chaplet and some prayers. Thank you but no thanks Madam Patrick. I am sure about my own salvation, Madam Vivien Patrick. I suspect that you must surely need more prayers at this time than most other people. And pray for your government too so that many lives like your will be less miserable.
I continue to demand Justice and Fair Play for the Construction Workers at LNG Train IV and all workers in Trinidad and Tobago.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-08
SOLIDARITY GREETINGS TO ALL WOMEN
We salute and extend solidarity to all our women and in particular those among the working class and the poor in our national community on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
My own efforts were to, in a practical way, give support to our women in the struggle for fair, decent and equal treatment at the workplace. And so, I spent considerable time today touring the National Canners Factory facilities on the Churchill Roosevelt Highway nearing Arima and where the majority of the workers are women – observing the conditions under which they work and making recommendations and demands for improvement and security.
Expressions of support are extended too the employees of First Citizens Bank – the majority of them women – struggling for decent pay for the decent work that they do and that continues to improve the Bank’s performance and ranking.
Salutations are also extended to the women employed on or directly related in some way to the workers on the LNG Train IV project, and the 56” Cross Country Pipe Line. The cause of those workers is a just cause deserving the prompt attention and action of the government now. When Mr. Manning promised a decent Minimum Wage for the Energy Construction Sector, it ought to have been with some consideration for its effects on the rest of the economy. It is most dishonest and unprincipled for the Prime Minister to come now and express doubts about the ability of the Government and the Energy Construction employers to affect Mr. Manning’s promise of decent pay and decent conditions.
We repudiate the Cabinet’s decision determined by big business interest to appoint any committee of lowly paid public servants whose recommendations may have been already dictated by their own poor terms and conditions of employment and the influences to which they are subjected.
No fraction of 1% of the national workforce, employed on a short term and temporary basis, can have any pull on wages or deleterious effect on the economy. If this were so, Trevor Farrell’s thesis and advice to Energy Sector workers 1974-1984 were seriously flawed.
And in any case, low wage economic growth equals no development, no vision and CEPEP only in 2020.
Indeed one of our better informed and balanced newspaper columnists suggests that the MNC – owned.
If the government continues to filibuster with its election promise, strikes whether wild cot or otherwise will become the order of the day and Mr. Manning will not be able to contain the discontent of the workers unorganized and those with recognized Union representation.
In this Plipwise workers’ refusal to berth and load the LNG Tankers at Point Fortin because of their exploitatively low wages and hazardous conditions. It has been rumoured that the employer has threatened to bring foreigners among whom there is likely to be trained commandos to replace the local workers.
Now no self respecting nationals and workers organization will sit by and allow that.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-05
THE INTEGRITY IN WORKERS AND ECONOMIC STABILITY
It is most disconcerting that the government, when its present occupiers were on the hustings, would have promised certain measures which it does not now consider appropriate and timely to implement.
The Prime Minister is now monitoring the situation at Atlantic LNG very closely and, if it reaches the stage where his government feels that the National Interest is jeopardized, he would then take action. This must be the umpteenth most unfortunate Prime Ministerial response that we have had on matters of very significant import.
Had it not been a very skewed and manipulative process for Union recognition and wage bargaining; had it not been a system of super exploitation perpetrated by large and small contractors – foreign and local; had the issue of an Energy Construction Sector Minimum Wage not been made on urgent policy matter on the election platform, the Prime Minister may have found easy escape from the foolish and irresponsible responses we are now being fed.
Where is the integrity in workers only now being told that the issue of a higher Minimum Wage in the Energy Sector had to be considered very carefully because it had implications for the entire Economy and for Economic Stability – to quote Mr. Manning. Were such considerations not done when platform promises were made 18 months ago? And if those considerations are only now being undertaken, when would implementation of that Sectoral Minimum Wage is effected? – after Train IV is completed? And what implications for the entire Economy would decent and reasonable Wages have – if not positive benefits? It is farcical that low wages in the Local Economy and the concomitant high profits that are repatriated by the foreign big business enterprise benefits local economic development. And it will be most interesting to hear the proponents of low wages and multinational exploitation – the ECA and Manning et al – defend the position of Bechtel International. The Train IV Construction was the subject of International Tender. Bechtel’s bid was among a number of reputable international tenders bench marked against international standards that would apply anywhere in the world and that would have taken into consideration top rates for top skills and other levels applicable to such construction taking place in a developed country. The Prime Minister is perhaps blissfully unaware of this but the Globalization paradigm will deal a death blow to all those without a sound perspective about it.
It must be understood too, that the Federal Minimum Wage in the USA is $5.50 – that is US $5.50 paid to the domestic helper and the boy selling burgers and French fries. The TT equivalent is $34.65 – more, much more than the $18.50 now paid to the Welder and other skilled personnel at Atlantic Train IV. There must be a serious neo-colonial; degenerative mentality that must have us accept that the local craftsman and artisan must remain must remain at the bottom of the heap.
Let me hasten to say that there is no advocacy here either for any proposed $120 per hour – certainly not at this time. We hold firm to the bargaining position that a decent and reasonable wage and appropriate terms and conditions of be afforded the people – all of them – employed on the Train IV construction and the 56” Pipeline. Now! But bargaining must have order and organization. On all sides. All of the Sub contractor employees on Train IV and the 56” Pipeline for the purposes of order and organization should be considered virtual Bechtel employs represented by an organization of the workers recognized for the purposes of bargaining on the one side and Bechtel and its Advisers on the other. This is sensible alternative advice that will rescue the projects from time overruns, bring some peace and stability and save the Prime Minister from his vulnerability to vexing double-speak.
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OWTU SPEAKS 2004-03-03
CARICOM IS NOT DEAD
It seems that Caricom is not really as dead as the state of inertia into which we have been condemning it. There is much value to its existence and more reasons now for its strengthening.
The meeting of heads in an Emergency Session yesterday and today, produced a position articulated by Chairman of the Regional Body and Prime Minister of Jamaica, P.J. Patterson in a manner and with content about which all Caribbean Community citizens should be proud. The decision of Caricom Heads, Contained in Prime Minister Patterson’s statement to the international media asserted in mature style and appropriate language the independence of Caribbean sovereign states and our subscription to the law, constitutional government and democratic principles. In all of these, our small community and even smaller unit states possess the moral authority to admonish the big and powerful that might is not necessarily right.
We heard nothing from our Caricom Heads confirming that President Aristide was abducted by US Military Officials and taken by force out of Haiti. Neither was any support forthcoming for the State Department’s fierce denial that the US was engaged in body snatching in anyway.
What we heard was a most mature and credible report that the military plane in which the Haitian President and Mrs. Aristide were being taken by technical landing in Antigua and contrary to rules and international regulations, Antiguan authorities were not allowed ground entry and inspection of the aircraft contained no passengers, only cargo. What a very strange occurrence indeed! Isn’t the kidnapped victim usually hidden and considered cargo during transportation to the hiding place?
And then out of the Bush, in an attempt to ease their own tension and like they did with Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega after they had use him, there are charges of corruption and drug dealing against Aristide.
Evil hand of US interests cannot hide even as they advise their criminal and murderous embarrassments in the Haitian crises to ‘make themselves scarce'. The world’s self acclaims best policeman is proving to be the world’s worst criminal and murderer of Democracy and Constitutional and Human Rights.
But our Caricom Heads have done well to have addressed the issues as forthright as their resolution and media statement those bits that we have heard anyway have indicated.
When we issued our statement the OWTU’s statement last Monday, we did not believe that Caricom Heads were as brave as to deal with the issues in the Haitian crisis as boldly as we had proposed. We feel today that our Caribbean Community an its Head have won new respect and support. We must all be aware however that one is often made to pay a price for the assertion of one’s independence.