March on

Still, the picture is better than it was in previous years when there were deeper rifts between the unions.

All can expect the usual soundings of war on the platform, come rain or shine.

There is dissatisfaction with governance, the pace of economic diversification, the lack of food security, high crime levels and the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. Labour leaders have also expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of delivery of a promise to phase out contract labour in the Public Service.

But the biggest challenge labour leaders __ and their constituents __ have faced is the level of retrenchments in the country.

The dismissals at the Government Information Services and in the On-the-Job Training (OJT) program have been cited as examples of a disturbing trend in both the public and private sector. With such discontent from the labour movement, it is hard to see their relationship with government and big business improving any time soon.

The current state of affairs is somewhat ironic given labour’s long standing flirtation with politics.

Labour is very often pitted against politics and politicians, yet labour leaders have always gone on to become government ministers.

Before Jennifer Baptiste-Primus there was Errol McLeod. One labour entity (the Movement for Social Justice) even contested elections though unsuccessfully. Recently, Watson Duke’s Progressive Democratic Party won two seats in the Tobago House of Assembly election, restoring a minority voice to that chamber after years of a PNM monopoly.

But the results of labour and politics flirting have always been variable.

It is hard for labour, given its agitation against the oppressive exercise of power, to then take up the reins of power and the responsibilities owed to the wider population.

A lot of the struggles relate not only to credibility but also to the sense that sometimes labour does not compromise enough. What is the role of labour in development? In circumstances where an economic downturn has affected revenue levels, is it in labour’s interest to agitate intensely? Some would say no.

Yet, labour cannot be told the economic situation is bad by those holding the purse strings. How is any government to be trusted in its representation of the facts given the question marks that loom over our most basic economic statistics? Labour must exercise sense and sometimes this calls for an examination of the bigger picture. This is especially true given variables which are out of the control of the State, such as the fate of international trade agreements given actions by Donald Trump, and the escalator that is world oil prices.

At the same time, labour must be allowed to speak out, because that, too, turns out to be a vital part of the movement’s role in development.

The celebration of Labour Day, which comes on the 80th anniversary of the Butler riots, is a reminder that while the role played by this movement is not always aligned with that of government it is still of importance to governance. Labour strengthens the idea that a democracy flourishes when its subjects can mobilise and speak truth to power. A country without this freedom would be terrifying.

So today, though they march along different plains, we urge the labour leaders to march on