Hours after the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) met with the People’s National Movement (PNM) to advance its Worker’s Agenda, one of its leaders called on the working class sector to organise itself properly, saying they cannot continue to hang onto the coattails of political parties. Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union (BIGWU) president Vincent Cabrera made the statement at the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) public policy forum, titled Going Beyond Two Party Politics, at the union’s Circular Road, San Fernando, headquarters yesterday.
Cabrera said a third political force that could represent the needs of the working class was needed in T&T, as in its history people have voted for a party on a tribal basis but now there was a faction that was willing to vote for a third party. He added: “Workers now have a clear choice. Vote for ‘Bim’ this election and ‘Bam’ next election and spend the interim marching against the government we just put in power, or sacrifice and build a third party of the progressive type.
“If we don’t do the hard work we shall continue to hold on to the coattails of political parties that do not have our interests and our views at heart.” He made it clear to the audience that he was speaking as BIGWU president and not in his capacity as chairman of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ).
“I am speaking as BIGWU president here. Let me just make that clear. And let me conclude by saying, comrades, we need a political vehicle of our own model to be present in the corridors of power.”
Voting on race
Speaking at the same forum, political analyst Michael Harris said T&T did not have two political parties but rather two election machines that were voted into power purely on the basis of racial representation. “We do not have political parties, we have election machines that mobilise themselves every five years to go out there and get votes.
“A real political party would represent several different kinds of interests, not just a racial one,” Harris added. He said neither party had any real programme policy in place. “They have no programme policy besides the basic things. The UNC will build box drains and roads and the PNM will build high-rise buildings and maybe some roads. They are paralysed by any real social transformation,” he said.
However, in response to questions posed by students, Harris said the country as a whole needed to disabuse itself of the idea that racism existed in T&T on any large scale. He said while politicians played the race card, people only voted on the basis of race as a default position when they did not see their interests represented in any political parties.