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National Workers Union - a new union with old values
 
NWU: PP GOVERNMENT HAS DONE QUITE POORLY!
 
The NWU seriously questions that twenty months after coming into office the government is only now moving to amend the Maternity Protection Act which involves changing the word thirteen to fourteen and amending the relevant National Insurance regulation along the same lines...more
 
NWU: MSJ IS NOT A PARTY OF THE WORKING CLASS
 
In a statement issued on January 24th 2012, the National Workers Union says: "The National Workers’ Union finds it mind-blowing that the MSJ claims to represent the interests of the working class yet its leaders desperately cling on to a government that has made an about turn on its minimum wage position; pursued a policy of suppressing workers’ wages; dragged its feet on ratifying ILO Convention 189 on decent work for domestic workers; announced a World Bank–crafted policy of privatisation; made no move to repeal or amend oppressive labour laws and imposed a state of emergency to obstruct trade unions from carrying out their essential tasks."...more

 
by Sylvestre McLaren
 

NWU BLASTS PRIVATISATION
This is going to put hundreds of workers on the breadline and hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of political financiers. The Minister’s announcement strengthens the suspicion of the workers at the Port of Spain City Council that the sanitation function in the city is also to be contracted out. The feeding frenzy at the trough of the national treasury is turning into an orgy...more
 

  
   NDT AGREES TO TALKS
The management of Non Destructive Testers Ltd has responded positively to the call made by National Workers Union (NWU) President Comrade Frank Sears for discussion with the NWU to discuss urgent matters affecting their workers who have joined the NWU.
 
The meeting was held on Friday 13th January and is seen by Comrade Sears as a positive development in the effort of the NDT workers to exercise their legal right to join the NWU.
 
DOES T&T NEED A SOCIAL COMPACT?
TWO VIEWS
 
At times the class struggle between Labour and Capital becomes more intense than usual. At those times calls for tripartite talks and social compacts or Social Partnership Agreements are heard.
 
They generally but not always come from organisations representing the interests of the capitalists. These calls are also made by some trade unions and by persons who believe that they are doing their patriotic duty by making those calls.
 
This website calls for public debate on this issue and initiates such debate by publishing two articles with contrasting perspectives on the issue.
 
Gregory Prevatt, an industrial relations practitioner gives his perspective here and Comrade Cecil Paul, Deputy President of the National Workers Union responds here.


 
 NDT WORKERS EMIT:

NDT WORKERS UNDER ATTACK FOR JOINING NWU 
The management of Non Destructive Testers Ltd. has launched a vicious attack against their workers for exercising their legal right to join a trade union of their choice – the National Workers Union (NWU). 

When the company got wind that their workers, dissatisfied with their conditions of work, had opted to exercise their right to freedom of association and joined the National Workers Union, they went into panic mode and begun to attack the job security of the workers.
 
Imagine in the twenty first century workers are being dismissed, victimised and threatened for exercising their legal rights...more

NWU SUPPORTS PORT, CEMENT WORKERS
NWU says: "The workers rage and frustration can no longer be contained by their leaders and they have intervened decisively in order to protect, defend and advance their interests in a situation of growing antagonism between capital and labour"...more

THE HINGE THAT SQUEAKS

Vincent Cabrera writes: "Workers are being forced to realise that it is only the hinge that squeaks that is lubricated. They know that they shall suffer for as long as they remain silent and accept managerial intransigence."...more


NWU TO WORKERS: IS WE TIME NOW
The National Workers Union says: "The government has shown that it is quite capable of taking away our hard-fought democratic rights and freedoms in its bid to serve its foreign and local capitalist masters. We must do whatever is necessary to defend ourselves. Our greatest strength is in our numbers and our power over production. We must not be afraid to use that power when we have to.

They may control the guns, the courts, the media and the parliament but we control production and the streets. The battle is well and truly joined. Is we time now"
...more
 
JOINT TRADE UNIONS RESUME STRUGGLE

The National Workers Union stated in a media release issued on 7th December 2011: "The National Workers’ Union, like the rest of the labour movement, understood, despite the protestations to the contrary of the government, that the late unlamented SoE was not invoked to prevent an un-named disaster or to fight crime.

We knew that the emergency was invoked to derail and obstruct the momentum of the labour movement’s campaign against the wage suppression policy of the government
".
..more

THE BEST FASCISM WE CAN GET
Burton Sankeralli says: "Fascism is a core characteristic of our historical process. And it has been essentially thus (albeit under different names) from Columbus to Manning. Kamla has merely inherited this process and is doing her work. I must say rather well."...more


RACISM: DIVERSION AND DIVISION
Sylvestre McLaren writes: "In order to deal effectively with racism the material basis for its existence must be removed. However, this will not happen in a capitalist society such as ours,unless a united, strong and progressive working class aligned with farmers, youths and other community organisations, working in unity with progressive forces can win significant reforms,thereby deepening and broadening the democracy in this country"...more
 
NWU: ASSASSINATION PLOT BOGUS
This latest nansi story reeks of political trickery and manipulation and seems designed to maintain a state of uncertainty and trepidation among the population. At worst it is a ploy to justify extending the SOE and as the NWU stated in a previous release it “is intended to accustom people to the sight of uniformed enforcers armed to the teeth willing to trample on citizens’ rights under the pretext of saving us from criminals.”...more
SOCA LAND FOR SALE
Dr. Godfrey Vincent writes:"Privatization is not just a public policy: it is part of an ideological discourse called the free-market discourse that gained currency in the 1980s. This discourse portends that there is no alternative to the market, that the private sector should become the driving force in the economy and that the government should become an umpire and adjust the rules in favor the elite and wealthy.

However, the present global economic melt down, the massive unemployment, rising income inequalities, rising crime, increasing global poverty and war and destruction all testify to the fact that the free-market has failed
"...more
 
NWU URGES COSSABO ON PRIVATISATION

In a flyer distributed at a joint trade union public meeting at Point Fortin on Saturday 19th November the National Workers Union (NWU) urged trade union leaders to convene an All Union Conference of Shop Stewards and Branch Officers (Cossabo) to deal with the threat of privatisation looming over the movement. The NWU also repeated its call to end the state of emergency...more

 
PP PATH: CAUSE FOR CONCERN
Cecil Paul writes: "When a government is insecure, inexperienced, does not have a political party structure and engages in nepotism and corruption – such a government rules through deception of the citizens, repressive and oppressive methods and most dangerous of all, uses the coercive arms of the State to defend it from the people and protect its repressive rule over the society"...more 

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NWU CONDEMNS WASA DISMISSALS
The National Workers Union (NWU) extends solidarity to the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW) in its effort to prevent the severing of workers at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA)...more
 
NWU SLAMS FCB DIVESTMENT

NWU calls upon the labour movement and the citizens of T&T to strenuously resist this backward policy that is designed to prop up a collapsing capitalist system and bring hardship on workers and citizens by affecting workers’ job security and eroding the sovereignty of our country in the interest of parasitic capitalists at home and abroad...more
 
FIGHT CRIME WITH PAN
Brother Scobie writes: "Let us start by utilizing the Pan yards that are already available and user friendly, but grossly under- utilized, to develop all the Artisan crafts related to the Steel band and concentrate on developing the rest of Steel band yards across Trinbago for the said purpose. They must be transformed into institutions of learning by day"...more
 
NWU RENEWS CALL FOR END TO SOE
NORRIS DEONARINE HONOURED
On Saturday 12th November 2011, it was announced that the Macoya Wholesale Market was renamed in honour of Norris Deonarine...more
Painting of Norris by Rafiki
 
The government expects citizens to be grateful for the lifting of the curfew while basic civil, constitutional and human rights continue to be violated on a daily basis. It’s like thanking a bandit for ceasing to planass you while he chops and stabs you...
more
 
 LANDMARK INDUSTRIAL COURT JUDGEMENT 

Comrade Dave Smith, General Secretary of the National Workers Union writes: "Occasionally, just occasionally, the Court comes up with what are called “landmark judgments” - judgments that establish a significant new legal principle or concept, or otherwise substantially changes the interpretation of existing law. The Communications Workers Union -v- Illuminate (Trinidad & Tobago) Limited (GSD-TD 118/2009) is one such case."...more

BIGWU REJECTS SALE OF FIRST CITIZENS SHARES
Vincent Cabrera, President of the Banking Insurance and General Workers Union issued the following statement on the government’s proposal to divest shares of First Citizens Bank.
 
Divestment to us is a method of beginning the wholesale privatisation of First Citizens Bank. Divestment may appear to be quite rational and well-intentioned. The truth is that this is opening the way to foreign ownership of shares in an institution which is of great strategic value to the government and people of Trinidad and Tobago...more
 

 NWU: WE CAN'T BE GOUTI AND HOUND DOG TOO 
PROPOSALS FOR COSSABO OF OCTOBER 1ST
The National Workers Union published a flyer for distribution at the Conference of Shop Stewards and Branch Officers held at OWTU headquarters on October 1st 2011. The flyer contained significant proposals for advancing the struggle against the wages suppression policy of the People’s Partnership government...more

NWU: REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE; END EMERGENCY NOW
The State of Emergency is intended to accustom people to the sight of uniformed enforcers armed to the teeth eager to trample the rights of the population under their government boots on the pretext of saving us from criminal activity by transforming us from citizens to subjects. The National Workers Union will have none of it...more
 
HARD FACTS VS PROPAGANDA
 The joint trade union movement has published a flyer for mass distribution which makes a devastating attack on Finance Minister Winston Dookeran's ever-shifting arguments why the government should not pay public sector and state enterprise workers no more than 5%.
The flyer argues that inflation has savagely eroded, over the last five years, workers' ability to keep up with the cost of living. It, further, argues that workers' share of the national pie is shrinking and demolishes the government argument that it cannot afford to meet its debt to workers...see flyer here
 
NWU REJECTS DOOKERAN’S AUSTERITY MEASURES
The National Workers Union (NWU) warns Finance Minister, Winston Dookeran, that state of emergency or no state of emergency, the working class will not sit idly by and accept the imposition of further austerity measures in the 2011-2012 budget which is due shortly...more 
 
 
NWU CONDEMNS REFUSAL OF PERMISSION FOR TOBAGO UNION MEETING
 
The National Workers Union (NWU) condemns the action of the Commissioner of Police in turning down an application by the joint trade union movement to hold a public meeting in Tobago. The meeting was slated to be held on September 9th 2011.

This turn of events certainly throws the spotlight on the strenuous denials of the government that the State of Emergency had nothing to do with the mobilisation of the joint trade union movement towards a
general strike over the issue of the 5% cap for government employees and state enterprise workers...more
 
NWU TELLS GOVERNMENT: "END EMERGENCY NOW"
The invoking of the State of Emergency allows the PP government, under fire for betraying manifesto promises, to appear to be “fighting crime” while at the same time seeking to gain support from some sections of the society for their assault on freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of movement and freedom of expression...more

FORWARD WITH THE LABOUR DAY ACCORD!
Now that it is clear, after the meeting with the joint trade union leaders and the Prime Minister, that the wage cap imposed by the government will stay in place, the way is open for the actions spelled out in the Labour Day Accord to be implemented.
In a piece written before the July 26th meeting, Comrade Gerry Kangalee, National Education and Research Officer of the National Workers' Union (NWU) argues strongly for a rigorous and scientific approach to organising the campaign to defeat the government's wage suppression policy...more

MTS WORKERS MOBILISE AGAINST 5% OFFER
Hundreds of MTS workers, members of the Transport and Industrial Workers' Union attended a Mass Membership Meeting on July 26th at the TIWU Hall in Laventille and emphatically rejected the management's offer of a 5% wage increase which had been made the previous Friday. After telling their union leadership in no uncertain terms that they would not accept the offer, the workers proceeded to join the vigil around the Prime Minister's Office...more

ALL MILITARY PERSONNEL CALLED UP
GOVT. PREPARING FOR STATE OF EMERGENCY!
Military sources have told this website that all army personnel have been ordered to report for duty...more


PP GOVERNMENT ATTACKS T&TEC WORKERS COLA!


 
by Rae Samuel
by Rae Samuel
by Frank Sears
by Sylvestre McLaren
by Rae Samuel
by Sylvestre McLaren
by Rafael Fyzabad
by Bryan St. Loui
  

Union Communications Services
is a 100% union book store offering a large, varied and helpful selection of hand-picked books for union leaders, activists and rank-and-file members. Many of these 150-plus titles can’t be found anywhere else.
Visit the UCS Online Book Catalogue to purchase items.
 
By buying your books through the UCS Online Book Catalogue you are making a donation to the National Workers Union. Help us to help you!
 
 
LATEST ADDITIONS TO THE CATALOGUE
 

Although nearly half of union members in the United States are female, little more than one leadership position in five is held by a woman. This report is designed to promote women’s activism and leadership within unions ...

If you ever face negotiations with a difficult employer, you need this book.

Why Unions Matter

Unions mean better pay, benefits, and working conditions for their members#59 they force employers to treat employees with dignity and respect#59 and at their best, they provide a way for workers to make society both more democratic and more egalitarian.

What can unions do as the Great Recession ravages workers and their unions and threatens to destroy decades of collective bargaining gains?

Contract Costing for Union Negotiators (with CD)

This incredibly helpful new manual for union negotiators explains both the fundamentals and the details of costing a collective agreement to prepare for and conduct your contract negotiations. It describes the principal ways that contract costs are calculated and expressed by negotiators, and guides you through the process of accurately calculating average wages for your bargaining unit ...

A New New Deal: Regional Activism and the Labor Movement

In A New New Deal, Amy B. Dean and David B. Reynolds offer a bold new plan to revitalize American labour activism and build a sense of common purpose between labour and community organisations. Can we adapt these ideas to Trinidad and Tobago?

The Bully at Work, 2nd edition

If you are bullied at work or want to understand more about this silent epidemic, you’ll want this book. You’ll learn that women and men are equally likely to be bullies, and women are more likely to be targets than men.

Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to Capitalism

Jim Stanford, an economist in the research department of the Canadian Auto Workers, thinks economics is too important to be left to economists. So, he wrote this concise and readable book to provide nonspecialist readers with all the information they need to understand how capitalism works – and how it doesn’t.

LINK UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

We  feature here what we call link under the spotlight. These links will change over time. They are featured to assist us in dealing with the complexities with which we are faced as we strive to develop our consciousness and flesh out our world view.
 
The link under the spotlight, at present, is a video called A MARXIST TAKE ON THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE. It is a lecture delivered by the British Marxist sociologist David Harvey.  
 
Previous links under the spotlight can be accessed here.
 

 

 
 
ATTENTION

LABOUR HISTORIANS, RESEARCHERS, STUDENTS AND ACTIVISTS

We have begun to post significant historical documents that cast light on the evolution and struggles of the labour movement over the years.

The first one posted is the final Grand Council Report of the Council of Progressive Trade Unions to a Special Convention which dissolved;the labour federation; which paved the way for the formation of NATUC.

There is useful info on the general strike of March 6th 1989, the struggle against the IMF structural adjustment programme and on the 1990 coup attempt among other issues.

We will keep posting on a regular basis other valuable historical documents that bring the history of the labour movement to life.

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A five minute update of the week's latest international news headlines. Made available Friday mornings.

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Thirty minutes of labour news and features from around the world. Made available Sunday mornings.



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