Labour's uncertain future

For decades, the T&T trade union movement played key roles in determining the pace and direction of national social, economic, and political development.

The turbulent 1930s - during which unions in their current form emerged out of strife - provided a critical turning point in our history.

Here came organisations equipping themselves with the means to conduct and maintain collective bargaining as a norm and to manage workplace grievances, while recognising a role in the wider developmental space.

There are two enduring features of the tumult. The first is that it has always been impossible to separate unions from national power dynamics and the second is that chronic fractures, not always ideological, have ritualistically militated against sustained unity.

Current evidence of both phenomena exists. If we wished, we could go back to the Workers and Farmers Party (WFP) of the 1960s and the United Labour Front (ULF) of the 1970s – both of which featured prominent activists spanning labour and politics.

The United National Congress (UNC) of 1989 included remote elements of a ULF legacy. The Peoples’ National Movement (PNM) meanwhile never offered similar credentials.

It always seemed to me that unions required independent spaces of their own. I discussed some of this recently with former trade union leader and Industrial Court judge, Vincent Cabrera.

This breathing space, we agreed, need not have excluded active engagement in party politics. But that the role of unions demands an ability to selectively adopt political positions in alignment with the interests of the workers they represent. The OWTU and PSA are perhaps thinking this is exactly what they are currently doing.

The Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) appeared to recognise the inherent conflicts but was unable to muster significant political support of its own and did not last long within the UNC-led “partnership” of 2010 to 2015.

Last week’s relatively weak labour demonstration, the unsolicited participation of political personalities, and the recent behaviour of unionists in and out of government nudged me in Cabrera’s direction for perspective.

Vincent Cabrera

He essentially agreed that the labour movement now confronts an epochal moment characterised by shrinking membership, factionalism, and deep loss of influential space.

Cabrera believes that too many contemporary union leaders have become preoccupied with employer-employee relationships at the expense of a wider developmental role.

There are indispensable functions such as negotiations and action on grievances, he acknowledges, but they cannot constitute the entirety of trade unionism. He believes unions must step back from the daily demands of industrial relations and undertake strategic planning, education, and broader engagement of national development.

Cabrera suggests that the labour movement must try harder to be heard at all deliberative and decision-making fora and he even advocates legislated union representation on state boards, rather than appointments dependent on partisan preferences.

His observations are particularly relevant against the background of what appears to be a continuing contraction in the influence of organised labour and, arguably, the deepest fractures in its entire modern history.

In the 1980s there were the fissures leading to the Council of Progressive Trade Unions (CPTU) versus the Labour Congress. Later came the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) and the Federation of Independent Trade Unions and Non-Governmental Organisations (FITUN), with various permutations and personality shifts along the way.

Prof. John La Guerre had by then noted the long history of factionalism in labour politics in ‘The Politics of Communalism: The Agony of the Left in Trinidad and Tobago, 1930–1955.’ It needs a fresh read in 2026.

I put to Cabrera a prevailing view that unions confront the danger of irrelevance – covering less than 25% of the working population and subsumed as cosmetic sub-components of political parties.

His prescription is for an all-inclusive dialogue among trade unions to establish common positions on matters affecting both workers and the wider society.

Individual organisations, he suggests, must recognise that their own concerns cannot always take precedence over the collective interests of the movement.

Reconciliation, Cabrera argues, cannot simply mean bringing rival leaders into the same room. It must involve agreement on a shared purpose.

Success with this may well tell us whether the movement can again become a real participant in determining the country's future. Cabrera's reflections suggest that opportunity remains.

Such cohesion appeared to be on uncommon display ahead of the Cuban embargo vote last week. Twelve unions teamed up, OWTU included, to lobby for continued support for the annual UN resolution to lift the US blockade.

However, failure in this joint venture elicited nothing more than scattered groans.

Cabrera, I declare, is among the rare optimists.