David Vs Goliath

Last Monday — May Day — we (that is the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and NGOs — FITUN) had a very powerful demonstration through the streets of San Fernando. All three daily newspapers got it right when they said “thousands march in San Fernando.” Not all the television coverage was good however and one principal station didn’t even carry it on its major newscast at 7 pm. It seems as if for them what happened in south wasn’t very important even though the thousands of blue-shirts of the OWTU meant that a lot of workplaces and especially in the oil industry were affected by workers joining the protest demonstration, May Day not being a public holiday.

We had participants from many different communities and sectors as well. Some groups were not there in large numbers but they saw it as being important enough to send representatives, to identify with the theme — social justice, equity, peace and sustainable development. There were farmers — dairy farmers from Carlsen Field who are being threatened with the loss of their livelihood due to a government decision to raise their land rents by a ridiculous amount; cane farmers who don’t know if they will have a crop next year; food crop farmers from Chaguaramas whose lands are in danger of being converted to housing.

There were residents from communities whose way of life is on the chopping block because of some so-called “development project” — St Ann’s/Cascade/Mt Hololo whose community uses the “President’s Grounds” which the Prime Minister wants to convert to part of the gardens for his residence; East Port-of-Spain where the Government wants to create a Miami like environment; and Chatham/Cedros where the Government and Alcoa want to build an aluminium smelter. These community issues have all been in the public domain for some time but on May Day in San Fernando they became an integral part of the larger mass movement for social justice joining with workers’ demands to resolve industrial relations or workplace issues.

May Day was the logical outcome of the dialogue that took place on March 18 at the FITUN Forum and the various processes of interaction that are underway in several spaces throughout the country. And May Day is not the end of the mobilisation either. We estimate that some 7,000 or more persons were in our demonstration. It was certainly the largest march seen in San Fernando for many years and, in my view, matches some of those that OWTU organised in the late 1980s. For a working day the turnout was good. And June 19 will be even bigger.

Labour Day is not a working day and so many more will find it easier to attend, though when people are totally committed to doing something about their problems they make the sacrifice of not going to work and even losing a day’s pay. I expect that given the tremendous dissatisfaction that so many citizens have with the state of things in the country that some time soon the movement will reach the point where the numbers prepared to stay away from work will be counted not in the thousands but the tens of thousands.

People are beginning to recognise that they can no longer just grumble about their problems they have to rumble! We have to move from talking the talk to walking the talk. In other words it is better to demonstrate in tangible ways how one feels about an issue than to just quarrel and fuss. Marching “literally demonstrating — is one very important manifestation of being prepared to stand up, being counted and being seen to be taking action. And we must never discount how impactful these demonstrations are. The owners and managers of big capital know when workers walk off the job and take direct action. The political directorate recognises the power of such demonstrations too especially when the numbers are significant and the action is not a one-off event.

This is why FITUN has decided to have another citizens’ action. This one focuses once again on food prices. Everyone knows just how much the continuous rise in food prices has hurt. A basket of goods that would have amounted to $100 two years ago now probably requires the consumer to fork out $150 at the cash register today. For those whose incomes are small or whose earnings are fixed - such as pensioners - this kind of increase is more than just painful. It means that some items can no longer be bought. When one was only able to afford the basic needs in the first place, to leave some items out now because prices have escalated means that some basic need is not being met. In far too many cases the result is a poor diet and in some instances ? especially for the children in the family ?-malnourishment.

True the government has a variety of social programmes — a credit card (smart card) for foodstuffs is to replace the present food hampers, social assistance and other grants - which ease some of the pressure, but these are themselves being made less effective because of the rise in food prices. Thus, if the food hamper is valued at $300 then the quantum of items purchased will decline significantly as prices increase. Similarly the smart card will only buy goods amounting to the dollar value of the card. As prices go up the smart card will give you fewer items.

These social programmes are therefore really short-term solutions and are not sustainable. For example, in three years for the smart card to have the same purchasing power as it does today it will have to be increased by 75 percent since the rate of increase of food prices is 25 percent per year!