An alliance of labour, political and economic concerns are gathering to reclaim their rights as Trinidadians

BY STEVEN KASZAB

Trinidad and Tobago’s national government has made every effort to serve its citizens, and yet this COVID -19 pandemic has challenged the government like never before. The Rowley Administration has placed the globally approved health protocols in place, with the hope of stopping this spread of the Omicron variant. What has become a normal procedure in the EU, Canada and elsewhere has been applied to the Trinidadian lifestyle.

Most nations have placed some form of dictate, law or motion towards vaccination of all its citizens, and particularly the public workers that police, provide healthcare and serve their people, Trinidad is no different. The Rowley Government has ordered that all public employees be vaccinated, and should an employee not do so, that employee will lose their rights to that employment.  If one cannot go to work, one certainly can expect not being paid. Well, what about Trinidadians Labour and Human rights?

Those who are championing the labour cause are calling foul to this directive. Trade Unions such as The National Trade Union Centre and Oilfield Workers Trade Union call upon members to go to work, so long as they have not received a letter of suspension or termination, reporting to their workplace every day and signing the register as proof of their willingness to work.

The government’s labour and legal departments must get used to the term “constructive dismissal” as something that most of these employee’s legally will charge the government. Changing an employee’s job or working conditions with the aim of forcing them to resign is illegal. If an employee is not paid at the end of the month this constitutes a lockout. Labour lockouts can easily become a national movement, a general strike against a government that is showing many of its citizens little empathy and mismanaging governmental health and labour protocols.

Issues of privacy come to air also. Who is vaccinated and who is not? Who is employed and where? Trinidad and Tobago has a moral duty to advance the health and safety of all its citizens, and not to prosecute some, while claiming to do so in order to protect the many. Democracy is supposed to work for all, not just the many, while the few suffer indignities.