Shattered dreams of daily-paid workers

THE EDITOR: I was reviewing some newspaper clippings in search of information to support my view that anyone replacing Howard Chin Lee as Minister of National Security can only hope to do a better job with public relations, when I saw the headline: “Daily-paid workers march for better deal.” What interested me most in the details of the report was the statement made by the President of NUGFW Robert Giuseppi that “the main issue of protest was the lack of collective bargaining by employers in both the public and private sectors. They are showing total disrespect and disregard for collective bargaining.” It caught my attention because Mr Giuseppi has it all wrong. It is not disrespect for collective bargaining, it is all about the old policy of discrimination and disrespect for blue collar workers generally and moreso, government daily-paid (GDP) workers, by successive Governments since 1976 with the collaboration of the politically tainted leadership of NUGFW from 1976 to 1986. Had fate been kinder to GDP workers, the news report headline would have read: “Daily-paid public servants march for better deal.” Whatever disrespect GDP workers are experiencing today is the result of betrayal and poor leadership that destroyed the dream of former GDP workers to be recognised, respected and treated as daily-rated public servants with job security and a pension plan.

The dream was pursued in 1957 with the formation of the National Union of Government Employees (NUGE) to represent “only” Government workers. NUGE was built on the principle of merging with other unions representing GDP workers and the union’s policy was to build self-esteem among the workers, show respect and demand the same from Government representatives. The performance of the General Council was evidence of a new dawn for trade unionism in TT. In 1960, however, fate dealt GDP workers and their organisation a fatal blow when its first President General Stephenson Sargeant Snr, father of a former Mayor of Port-of-Spain, a monthly paid employee with TTEC, was forced to resign the post. It was a tragic loss to the leadership of NUGE as he had the right image and commitment to the cause of GDP workers. Following the election of a new President General, it was evident that the internal stability of the union was taking a new direction and, early in 1962, the arteries of democracy were slowly becoming clogged. The first assault on the union’s democracy was the systematic dismantling of the structure and autonomy of Divisions and Sectional Unions upon which the national body was built, reducing them to the status of glorified ordinary branches with little influence.

To cut a very long history short, by the year 1967 the culture of maximum leadership was present in the union and the “yes-men” took NUGE into a merger with a dying Federated Workers Trade Union (FWTU) that was organising Tom, Dick and Mary. The merger delivered a caesarian birth of the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW) with a false birth certificate — date the union was established — that makes it 30 years older than the date it was born in the year 1967. It is interesting to see what GDP workers benefitted from the ill conceived merger between the NUGE and the FTWU: (1) The workers are still waiting on a pension plan after 37 years of negotiations. (2) Over the years, GDP workers have traded substantial wage increases and other benefits for “job security” that never materialised. (3) They were denied the opportunity to gain respect and to lift themselves above the similarities of URP.(4) They have learnt the hard way that it is bad business for trade unions to hold on to the shirt tail of Governments in power. The 37 years of discrimination and neglect perpetrated against GDP workers by successive Governments, as their employer, is a living proof that politicians had lost their moral and spiritual values many years ago as far back as 1961, when the first proposal for a pension plan was made at the Joint Industrial Council (JIL).

WYCLIFFE MORRIS
Former Director of Education
NUGFW