PM praises trade union

The Port and Maritime Services Limited was founded by the SWWTU in collaboration with private sector interests during a downsizing exercise by the Port Authority.

In the keynote address at the anniversary function, Prime Minister Patrick Manning described the establishment of the company as “a great and signal occasion.”

He noted that the initiative shown by the trade union in setting up the company is “normally frowned upon and even rejected outright by other labour organisations.”

“They tend to view this as rather pro-capitalist and as a conflict of interest between labour and capital,” Manning said.

“It would appear that rather fortunately for the SWWTU and its membership they have not allowed themselves to be forestalled by that idea.

“The company remains today the only one of its kind in Trinidad and Tobago and the English-speaking Caribbean. To its credit, it has developed a number of thriving subsidiaries.”

The Prime Minister noted that the environment in which labour organisations operate has changed and it is “no longer a question of wage negotiations around the bargaining table.”

He added that it was “no longer a question of adversarial positioning, but more than ever a question of collective responsibility for the management of the political economy.”

He said his government had long pursued development of a people’s sector in which trade unions and cooperatives, including credit unions and friendly societies, would play critical roles.

“Some of the greatest institutions of the people were formed from the bowels of labour in response to convulsive economic circumstances,” Manning said.

The Prime Minister noted that previously the SWWTU had been involved in another valuable initiative — this time in collaboration with the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW) — to provide union members with low cost housing in Valsayn.

Manning congratulated the SWWTU for proving itself visionary.

He urged the union not to make the Port and Maritime Company “a singular experience” but to allow it to “signal a major point of departure for the development of businesses” in this country.