STRUGGLE FOR POWER

THE OVERT attempt by the leadership of Team Unity to win over the sugar workers, the political base of the Opposition United National Congress (UNC), is an interesting political development since it could possibly lead to either a Team Unity Opposition in Parliament by early 2004, or new UNC leadership. Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, Political Leader of Team Unity, a former Attorney General in the United National Congress 1995-2000 and 2000-2001 administrations, has been assiduously seeking to win over the support of the sugar workers. In addition, Mr Maharaj, an attorney at law, has taken up issues involving the sugar workers, for example the Voluntary Separation of Employment Plan (VSEP), under which more than 9,000 workers were severed recently from Caroni (1975) Limited, as well as others he insists infringe on citizens' constitutional rights.

The issues have tended to be those affecting the rights of persons in areas where the UNC has a substantial following or in marginal seats. Others have been national in scope, for example, the intervention in the now three-month protest by disabled persons, immediately outside of the National Flour Mills compound on Wrightson Road. Maharaj's pitch to the sugar workers, whose displacement from Caroni may mean that the UNC may no longer be in a position to command or take for granted their immediate support, and that of their families, has drawn a more than modest response. That was not entirely unexpected, as the UNC is no longer in a position to represent itself as fighting for the jobs and rights of sugar workers, more than 9,000 of whom have accepted the VSEP.

Admittedly, Maharaj's claim last week that Caroni workers should have received three times the severance benefits allowed them is pure rhetoric. But if, as he has argued, the agreement on which the VSEP was based was more than 20 years old, why did he not seek to have the benefits upgraded while he was a senior member of the former Administration, particularly since the UNC had its own plan for restructuring Caroni. Or why did he not take up this cause or make this claim before the VSEP became a fait accompli? The former sugar workers, however, are hardly likely to apply reason to his arguments, but rather emotion. In turn, the strategy adopted by the leadership of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Trade Union of seeking an injunction against Caroni, with respect to the company's VSEP offer, and then turn around and advise the sugar workers to accept it, was somewhat odd.

Additionally, the failure of the UNC leadership to intervene decisively or even to offer legal or moral support to the workers was clearly bad politics. Instead, apart from a bit of rhetoric, including a tiresome appeal to ethnicity, the United National Congress made clear political tracks for Team Unity “to run on.” As a result of the ineffective approach by the UNC leadership coupled with its insistence that it would not support Government's efforts for the creation of the Caribbean Court of Justice, and indeed of any piece of Government legislation we may well see an open defiance of the leadership. In any case, a major split in the party would surely strengthen the position of Team Unity and its obvious bid to win over support of the "sugar belt", traditional stronghold of the UNC and its predecessors. A fresh struggle for power is emerging, one which may well change the political landscape.