UNC to move out from Rienzi

The UNC executive has taken a decision to remove its head offices from Rienzi Complex. This decision brings to an end a 30-year-old powerful and enduring relationship between the sugar- based union — All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Trade Union (ATSGWTU), and the main political party (in all its incarnations) in opposition to PNM. The ULF, led by Basdeo Panday, was at Rienzi Complex since its inception in 1976. After the split in the NAR, Panday and Club 88 remained at Rienzi. Vice-chairman Vasant Bharath confirmed yesterday that the UNC executive had taken a decision several weeks ago to look for a new headquarters. He said the executive believed that Rienzi Complex had become too “cramped and outdated” for the party’s current use.

Bharath said the party had located a number of alternative buildings  — one in Port-of-Spain and two in Chaguanas. He said the UNC was examining the possibility of having two headquarters — one in its traditional Central heartland and another in urban Port-of-Spain. He said the executive felt that an additional office located in the city would facilitate the widening of the party’s base and increase the access of the party’s main offices to a larger cross-section of the population.

UNC sources said yesterday that the executive was considering the HCU building in Chaguanas and a Clico building in the same borough. Sources said the executive was leaning towards the HCU building, located opposite the Chaguanas Police Station. Within recent times the HCU has been featuring consistently as a player in the internal warfare within the UNC. It had a key role in arranging a meeting between Panday and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj several weeks ago at Rienzi Complex. And, according to sources, it was one of the key participants in the organisation of the UNC’s Unity Platform at Mid-Centre Mall.

Political analysts yesterday pointed out that with the closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd, the sugar workers no longer had the same numerical and therefore political strength. “The link between the party and the sugar union  doesn’t have the same political value it once did,” one source noted. Rienzi Complex, named after Adrian Cola Rienzi, the first president of the All Trinidad Sugar Estates and Factory Workers Trade Union, became the party’s headquarters after Panday was elected president of the ATSGWTU. Panday’s politics became an extension of his trade unionism.