JTUM warns against mandatory covid19 vaccination

The Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) has issued a long list of demands to Finance Minister Colm Imbert, among them that there should be no mandatory covid19 vaccination.

The movement has promised further action is its demands are not considered.

Its leader Ancel Roget took the letter to the Finance Minister at the Eric Williams Financial Complex, Independence Square, Port of Spain on Friday.

Addressing the media after delivering the letter, Roget said every day more and more workers were being retrenched, and that the movement was against mandatory vaccination. He raised a number of issues while speaking with the media.

“Of course, we will raise hell on anybody who intends to impose that on our country,” he said.

He said there was also now a threat to decrease the old age pension in a time when the cost of everything was increasing.

“Our elders, the little pension, that is inadequate. The little pension that they depend upon to take care of their grandchildren and so on, because their parents have been retrenched, that is being threatened,” Roget said.

Among JTUM's other demands were: no new taxes; no property tax at this time; no more removal of subsidies on water, electricity, fuel; no to privatisation of NP and the sale of service stations; immediate settlement of all outstanding negotiations; increase in the minimum wage; adequate foreign exchange for agricultural input; filling vacancies in the teaching service; no to the unilateral restructuring of Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), TT Electricity Commission (T&TEC), NP, TTPostal Corporation (TT Post), Telecommunications Services (TSTT), Lake Asphalt and Solid Waste Management Company (SWMCOL); implement job evaluation processes at the San Fernando and Port of Spain City Corporations, TT Post, teaching, fire and prison services; and making temporary relief officers at TT Post permanent.

He said while they had no problem with the restructuring of bodies like WASA and T&TEC, it should not be unilateral. He said they need to be restructured, but the input of the majority recognised union was required.

The failure of Government was leading to a lack of opportunities for the country’s youth, he said..

“Worse than that, there is no hope on the horizon for any young person in this country. Who can tell himself or herself, ‘Okay, things are bad today, but I can see beyond the horizon, tomorrow, that I will have a job and a profession and be able to contribute to my community and country’?

“There is absolutely no hope the way in which this economy and country is being run.”

If the demands are not considered, the movement has a list of actions to commence, Roget said.

He added that it was anxious to start those actions because “the covid situation would have us use alternative ways to continue the work of the trade union.

“But the traditional work of the trade union will not stop. We will obey all of the laws. We will ensure that all of the protocols are maintained. We will contribute as much as we can to the stopping or reduction of the spreading of covid19.

“But we will not contribute to the inaction of the Government or the attacks on the ordinary people by the Government,” he said.

Roget said the unions have had complaints of employers forcing workers to be vaccinated. This has also been happening in state enterprises, he said.

“The trade union movement, we support vaccination. Let me say that clear.

"But we also support the right not to be vaccinated for many different reasons people would have.

“We are saying in that regard employers, including the Government, ought not to be forcing their employees, through means of employment, to mandatory vaccination and so on. We are radically against that.”

Roget said T&TEC had tried to start this with its temporary employees and the union was forced to “put a stop to it.”

He said an official communication was sent to the temporary workers about a month ago and that was when the union stepped in.

Asked if – given the arrival of the omicron variant and low vaccination rates – there might be a need for mandatory vaccination, Roget said the movement would not say that.

He said the union had met with employers, the Employers Consultative Association (ECA) and various chambers on determining how vaccination should be dealt with across the board. Roget said there should be persuasion instead of coercion.