The Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) is fully in support of the Movement for Social Justice in the August 14 Local Government Elections, even though the MSJ is only contesting three districts in the Point Fortin Borough Corporation.
JTUM president Ancel Roget, speaking with the media at the Gonzales Community Centre in Point Fortin on Friday said, “The JTUM, which represents a significant body of trade unions in this country, have taken the position to support the MSJ in these local government elections.”
He said this decision was taken because “it is absolutely necessary that we do something different to get a different type of result here in this country.”
Roget said it was only around election time that political parties in authority associate with people on the ground, in order to get their votes.
“Representation is about the development of a people and they have sought to under-develop you here in Point Fortin and entirely throughout Trinidad and Tobago.”
He claimed all of the PNM’s policies “are geared to suit one per cent of all the people in this country.”
Roget said, “It is time that the (other) 99 per cent of the people, stand up in their own defence.”
He declared that the MSJ “is the only party that has identified with the people on the ground.”
Roget claimed that the Prime Minister and the PNM are disconnected from these people.
He said, “We are not going to stop until the people get justice in TT.”
“For TT to live, the PNM must die (politically).”
Roget made it known however that JTUM and the OWTU are “not supporting the UNC.”
He did not see support from members of the OWTU’s Pointe-a-Pierre branch for UNC candidates contesting districts in the San Fernando City Corporation as a betrayal of the union’s commitment to the MSJ.
“We have no MSJ candidates in Pointe-a-Pierre. If we had, it would have been different.”