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News from the Caribbean as of
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Trinidad-born US labour leader calls on workers to speak up
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
by Stephen Cummings
Caribbean Net News Trinidad Correspondent
Email: stephen@caribbeannetnews.com
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: Trinidad-born US labour union leader, Roger Toussaint, addressing thousands at a Trinidad Labour Day celebration event, has called on the Trinidad working class to be vigilant and not to let government or foreign multi-national companies rob them of their wealth from oil and gas.
Toussaint is the President of the New York Transport Workers Union Local 100 and was on a short visit to Trinidad. He led a strike last December in New York that virtually crippled that city's transportation system.
The authorities claimed that the action was illegal. He was eventually arrested and later sentenced to ten days in jail, but was released after four days on good behaviour. He had to pay a fine of US$1,000. The New York Transport Workers Union was also ordered to pay a fine of US$2.5 million.
New York Transport workers had been protesting for better working conditions.
But, while speaking on Monday to a large crowd at Trinidad's annual Labour Day celebrations in Fyzbad, south Trinidad, Toussaint criticized the Trinidad government for allowing poverty and crime to flourish in the midst of what he said was an abundance of wealth in the country.
He stressed that it was only through unions that workers can fight poverty and crime.
Toussaint on Monday joined several other local labour union leaders calling on workers to speak up and stand up and demand their portion of the country's wealth and the right to equal treatment.
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