Labour to Settle Old Scores

10, July 2000
YES, it's a fact. In the Chinese language, the word chaos is a combination of two other words which signify, respectively, danger and opportunity. The labour movement in T&T is at present in chaos. This time, it is absolutely necessary to seize the opportunity provided by the chaos to do what was not done before.

There has always been this duplicity of posture, positioning and perspective within the trade union movement from the very onset. Even when the Trade Union Ordinance was first being proposed by the Colonial Government in 1932 because of fear of another series of social upheavals, Cipriani, the leader of the Trinidad Labour Party, on advice from his counterparts in Britain, opposed the ordinance on the grounds that the right to "peaceful picketing" was not included within the framework of the proposed legislation.

Other local leaders not as "socially acceptable" nor "socially respectable" as Cipriani, then sought to get him to understand historic processes, and to accept the ordinance as proposed with the clear intention to agitate and struggle for the right to picket. The aim was to make picketing acceptable, de facto, through common practice and precedent, as a step towards it being placed on the statute books of labour law.

Cipriani rejected that approach, and the Dalley Report after the 1937 social explosions, would suggest that the absence of officially recognised trade unions was one factor that contributed to the breakdown. Yet, today, in year 2000, despite all that experience has taught us, some trade union leaders are proposing an end to the act of demonstrating and placarding.

There have always been two sides to trade unionism. The one seeking "respectability" and legitimacy under the ambit of the powers that be, and the other, militantly demanding not only social respectability, but justice and the best possible terms and conditions in context of the democratic traditions.

Yes, it is a fact that we all came here to this Caribbean place as "labour", with the intention that we merely serve and shut up.

But it is also fact that we never accepted this status, and we always fought to be "masters of the region", and to determine the conditions under which we produce and live.

Development, though, is never simply linear. Modern relations and specialisation divided labour. Labour definitions can no longer be confined only to human power expended on the shop and factory floors, or in the plantation fields producing specific products.

Numerically, the middle elements increased in direct proportion to the development of the service sectors such as revenue-collection, marketing, communications, information, and maintenance.

A labour aristocracy, so to speak, would come to exist as wage and salary differentials, significance and importance of sectoral contributions to the Gross National Product (GNP), and the concomitant differences in consciousness and combativity, intensify the stratification of labour and reek havoc to the quest of labour unity.

The CWU of Tull could never be the CWU of Townsend, given the objective significance of telecommunications and information technology to a modern economy.

Likewise, the PSA of Manswell had to be transformed into the massive PSA of the likes of Rennie, Graham, Weatherhead and Baptiste, by no coincidence a woman, given the numerical strength of women among public servants at all levels, and given the change in nature of the State from being mere facilitator, collector, nurturer and health server to being a major wielder and manager of capital in the commanding heights of the economy after 1970.

The greater involvement of the State as employer in all productive and service areas, brought public servants closer to working-class critical consciousness; public servants were suddenly no better off than anybody else.

The OWTU of Weekes and Bannister would remain the same OWTU in terms of national, political and social significance, burdened by its own historic mission and ruthless in its dealings with all whomsoever may choose to deviate or "collapse in office", especially those within its own ranks.

At present, it is organisationally in disarray and its traditional leadership of the movement will be called into question. That, in fact, is one of the underlying causes of the present predicament as its enemies sense a weakening of integrity.

The Sugar Union (All Trinidad) from Bhadase to Basdeo to Boysie would as usual filter to and fro, given sugar's demise in objective importance. One day they would stand here, the other day there, dancing only with their primeval collective emotion on that thin red line of pragmatism, between the reactionary and the progressive.

The NUGFW is just as self-propelled and primeval in their responses - though more complex and wily - having grown out of the urban "ghettoes", out of the lowest of the low and the roughest of the rough, the garbage-cleaners, so to speak, relative to the hierarchy of labour's stratification, its earlier leadership emerging out of the steelband yards (Natty Crichlow, Casablanca) with all the "street-smarts" and hustler-type mentality so typical of that environment, thereby making its consciousness more "lumpen" than "proletarian" in nature.

Yet, they remain the only union to have successfully managed a mega development project, that is, Real Springs, and they are now probably 35,000 strong and ready to flex their muscles. They are now spoiling for any fight, with anybody, to which their leadership may direct them.

Only recently, in a spirit of competitive combativeness, NUGFW raided a few "seasoned turks" from within the ranks of both the OWTU and the now fading TIWU, as if in preparation for the battle now at hand and best expressed in the chaotic Natuc elections. That was not a surprise since Natuc could not function over the recent years, due to the internal contradictions.

There has to be a settling of old scores according to this objective reading of the major players on the stage, and this would take time to work itself out. A lot depends on the subjective inclinations of the leaders in each case.

In the meantime, how do they fashion any semblance of unity out of these diverse and by nature, different, combinations? Allan Alexander, indeed, has a great job on his hands. The only thing that will suffice is a "minimum programme", the elements of which will be discussed next week.