Local News

Politics fuelling maneuvers in labour movement

Caribupdate Weekly Editoral

April 10, 2013: Chester Humphrey, who has provided strategy and policy assistance and guidance to the Trades’ Union Council (TUC) for many years, is no longer on the council’s executive.

The former senator, who represented the labour movement in the Upper House of Parliament for 25 years, did not seek reelection to the executive at last Saturday’s TUC Biennial Convention.

On the surface, it appears to be all camaraderie among TUC brothers and sisters. But, under the surface, there is nothing short of Machiavellian maneuvers fuelled by the politics of the country and, especially, the fallout from the February 19 general elections.

It’s clear Humphrey – president general of the Technical and Allied Workers Union (TAWU) – has become a target for his criticism of the National Democratic Congress and his perceived role in the party’s whitewash at the polls.

What’s been said is that NDC sympathizers and supporters in the labour movement have been collaborating with party members in the private sector on strategy to bring labour closer to the sphere of the NDC.

It’s regarded as a major achievement for them, therefore, in replacing Humphrey in the senate with Ray Roberts, a former director of the Government Information Service.

As well, many have concluded that the same strategy maneuvering was involved in the recent TUC elections.

After Madonna Harford had announced she was relinquishing the TUC presidency, TAWU indicated that one of its officers, Andre Lewis, would vie for the position.

However, one day before voting, Marvin Andall of the Grenada Union of Teachers was introduced as a second candidate for president.

That attempt at running Andall having failed, Harford reportedly sprung a surprise at the TUC meeting and announced she was seeking another two-year term.

The plan, it seems, was to keep the TUC presidency away from Lewis and TAWU at all cost.

Harford was re-elected president. Lewis is first vice president.

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