Unions on their last legs

Like any person of 80, the glory years are over due to circumstances beyond human control. Workers are beginning to walk away from their unions, not because they are bad.

They have become less able to deliver massive increases in salaries or to realistically fight off a wage squeeze.

Unlike international trade unions, the TT version is stymied by never having enough paid-up participants to make the Government jump in blind obedience.

There is no argument that the TT working class families are where they are today because of the hard work of the unions. What is in question is how much farther can unions push the envelope in a small country dependent on a dwindling oil economy.

If there is genuinely not enough money, in order to save some face there should be regular dialogue with the Government.

In human years an 80-year-old is physically weakened by the passage of time.

In trade union years any escalation to open militancy after all that has transpired, is a step back into 1937 without any just rewards on the horizon.

One hand cannot clap. Our trade union movement must avoid clapping by itself. The unionists are perched on a political threshold.

Acting as agents provocateur to destabilise the Government is not the answer the people expect or want from the trade unions.

LYNETTE JOSEPH Diego Martin