Indarsingh laughs off national award detractors : ‘Medal won’t change me’

Rudranath Indarsingh, president of the
All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers’ Trade Union (ATSGWTU),
accepts the Chaconia medal (Silver) from President George Maxwell Richards
during the Independence awards ceremony at President’s House, St Ann’s,
on Wednesday. Photo: Keith Matthews

BY COREY CONNELLY

http://legacy.guardian.co.tt/archives/2005-09-02/news5.html

Chaconia medal (Silver) recipient Rudranath Indarsingh says he is making no apologies for accepting the award.

Indarsingh, president of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers’ Trade Union, was one of two trade unionists who were awarded the Chaconia medal (Silver) for their contribution to the movement at the annual Independence awards ceremony at President’s House, St Ann’s, on Wednesday evening.

Caricom secretary general, Edwin Carrington, was the sole recipient of this nation’s highest award—the Trinity Cross.

However, Indarsingh has been criticised by some for accepting the award, in light of his strong stand on the Government’s handling of the now-defunct Caroni (1975) Ltd.

Yesterday, though, the outspoken trade unionist said he was not concerned about criticisms.

“People have never agreed with all that I have done and criticism is part of life, whether it is in public or positive or negative criticism,” he said in a telephone interview.

“You have to take the criticism, analyse and move on.

“An award does not change me...Rudranath Indarsingh will continue to be Rudranath Indarsingh.”

He said he had the right to make his political choice and support whomever he wanted.

“Since I have made my entry and, moreso, in the office of the president general of the union, there are people that have agreed with me.

“There are people who have criticised me and there are people who were indifferent to me.”

Indarsingh said he accepted the award on behalf of the union and not because of political affiliation.

“I consulted with the officers of the union and they gave me the go ahead. It’s something I didn’t just go and say ‘yes’ right out,” he said.

Meanwhile, former leader of the Seamen and Waterfront Workers’ Trade Union, Francis Mungroo, said the award was long overdue.

He also defended trade unions, saying they were not losing their relevance.

“We appear to be on the decline because of certain productive processes that have emerged,” he said.

“I think the trade union is as strong as it ever was and I think it is also very much needed in our country at this time.”

National Award for sugar union boss

National Award for sugar union boss

Tuesday, August 30 2005

ALL TRINIDAD Sugar and General Workers Trade Union (ATSGWTU) president-general Rudranath Indarsingh has been tipped to receive the Chaconia Silver medal at tomorrow evening’s National Awards ceremony at President’s House at 7 pm.

Newsday has been reliably informed that Indarsingh will receive the Chaconia Silver medal for his contribution to the trade union movement and, more specifically, for championing the cause of Trinidad and Tobago’s sugar industry and its workers.

Indarsingh succeeded Boysie Moore-Jones as ATSGWTU leader in 1999, and had been at the forefront of several battles between the union and successive UNC and PNM governments over the restructuring of State sugar company, Caroni (1975) Ltd and how to ensure that the interests of its 10,000 workers were protected.

After the closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd in 2003, then agriculture minister John Rahael indicated that former Caroni workers would be given first preference for Caroni lands for agriculture and housing. The management of Caroni’s 77,000 land acreage was then transferred to the Estate Management Business Develop-ment Company.

Cabinet conferred the responsibility of overseeing the distribution of Caroni lands to former sugar workers to Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Christine Sahadeo.

From 2003 to 2005, Indarsingh has repeatedly called on the Government to clearly outline its plans for restructuring the sugar industry, training former Caroni workers to find other types of employment, and to honour its land promises to those workers. In April, Sahadeo promised that the approximately 7,000 former Caroni workers would start receiving their lands by July. This promise was reinforced by Prime Minister Patrick Manning at Indian Arrival Day celebrations at St Helena in June.

However, Indarsingh remained unconvinced by Manning’s statements and continued to insist that Government give an actual date for former Caroni workers to receive their lands.

At an August 18 post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall, Sahadeo announced that the 7,000 ex-Caroni workers would start receiving their promised lands on August 19 at La Paille Village in Caroni by way of a lottery system. That distribution took place in La Paille on August 19 for 500 ex-workers and subsequent distributions have been scheduled. Sahadeo said Government has given the commitment that in the case of deceased workers, their families will be considered for the lands they were promised.

When contacted yesterday, Indarsingh declined to comment about receiving a national award.

Link : http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,29737.html

Govt moves to hand over Caroni residential lots

link : http://legacy.guardian.co.tt/archives/2005-08-28/news6.html


By Peter Balroop
 
Government is moving to hand over residential lots to ex-Caroni (1975) Ltd workers, the Senate was told on Friday.

About 7,000 of them were already b allotted two-acre plots of land for farming during the past few weeks.

The Senate was also told on Friday that a powerful food import lobby was intent on throttling all farming efforts in this country.

Senator Christine Sahadeo, Minister in the Ministry of Finance, gave the Senate a breakdown of the timelines for distribution of 7,235 residential lots.

She also said new farmers would get back-up in terms of vegetable crop selection and marketing help, as well as have access to a food- processing facility.

Government was bringing in Ministry of Agriculture farming experts to help the farmers, she added.

Sahadeo, however, was severely criticised by Senate Opposition leader Wade Mark, who described the PNM's "premeditated" treatment of Caroni workers as the amputating of their legs, giving them motorised wheelchairs, and then leaning back to bask in their gratitude.
Mark called on the Government to account for every plot of land that had been distributed, even before the Parliament had completed legislation for divestment of Caroni's 76,000 acres of land, and the use to which it would be put.

He also mocked the Government's agricultural policy, contending that the PNM was intent on fooling people because the reality was T&T was being held to ransom by "a very powerful food import lobby."

In her contribution to the debate on the report by the special select committee of the Senate that considered the Caroni (1975) Ltd Vesting Bill, Sahadeo said it was disconcerting to see the level of criticism that was being heaped on the Government for the retraining programme for the Caroni ex-workers.

She said she had been with the workers every step of the way, and they were happy with the new skills they had learnt, but it seemed certain elements in T&T society, including the Opposition UNC, were insisting that they (the ex-workers) remain bogged down in agriculture, when there were whole new worlds out there for them to conquer.

In terms of the agricultural land distribution, Sahadeo said the two-acre plots were capable of generating sustainable farming, and that the distribution of the plots was transparent.
Vowing that new farmers would be given help every step of the way, Sahadeo declared:
"We want to make Caroni workers' dreams come true."

A surplus in the monthly workers’ pension plan would soon be distributed, and Cabinet had agreed to rectify a $350-million deficiency in the daily-paid workers' pension plan.
Sahadeo said the Government was intent on honouring all of its commitments to the ex-Caroni workers, and she had pledged personally to ensure that this took place.
The same transparent process would be used for the residential lots distribution, as in the farming land, she said.

A total of 7,235 lots on 22 locations had been identified, but infrastructure had to be put in place before they were distributed.

The Government estimated that 1,100 lots would be distributed in 2005, 3,200 in 2006, and the remaining 2,400 in 2007.
 
Sahadeo said farmers would get 30-year leases, with the option to renew, with the codicil that the land would revert to the State if productive farming was not carried out.
"I'm comfortable and confident that everyone will benefit, and we will see a reduction in food prices," Sahadeo said.

In his contribution, Mark zeroed in on Gilbert Park as one area of Caroni lands that were distributed even before Parliament had completed its deliberations on the vesting of the state enterprise's 76,000 acres.

He asked Sahadeo to explain how the W Connection club was able to put up a steel structure there and who gave the organisation the authority to take over Gilbert Park in California.
Sahadeo said there was an informal arrangement between the State and the club, without leases or remuneration, in which the club would occupy and maintain the park so the public could continue to enjoy the facilities.

Sahadeo said before the shutdown of Caroni, 50-odd land lease deals had been entered into, and deposits accepted, so the Government had to honour them.

Since the shutdown, however, no new deals had been made, she declared.

Mark called for a listing of all of the land transactions the State had entered into since the UNC demitted office in December, 2001, with respect to Caroni lands.

Until that was produced, he said, he would say no more on the subject.
Mark said he heard Sahadeo talking "glibly and loosely" about setting up an agro-processing plant for the Caroni farmers.

He said that was "like a pipe dream, whistling in the dark" since in his view the Government had absolutely no plans in place for T&T’s agricultural future.
Prime Minister Manning might produce some plans in the 2006 Budget presentation, said Mark, but no PNM 2020 Vision document had so far documented a comprehensive agricultural plan for the country.
 
"The reality is there is a very powerful food import lobby in this society," said Mark, who explained that this lobby’s philosophy was that, in these times of globalisation and trade liberalisation, it was cheaper to import than to grow food.

Warning that in the last three years, 700 million new consumers from India and China had come on the world market, Mark said there was a supply and demand crisis brewing, and that it was incumbent on all countries to take their food security seriously.

T&T imported more than $3 billion worth of food and food products annually, and the bill was rising, Mark declared. He said to speak of an agro-processing facility being set up was "almost laughable," since the PNM had done nothing in the last four years to address food production.
The PNM had "slaughtered" food production when it took the premeditated decision to close down Caroni.

Mark said the UNC had recognised Caroni needed restructuring, but not in the way the PNM did it.
This was like blowing off the legs of the workers, providing them with motorised wheelchairs, then asking them for their gratitude.
 
"That is what this regime did to Caroni workers and their families." ,
Mark said he believed there was a loophole in the legislation which would allow Cabinet the ability to increase the proportion of Caroni's 76,000 acres for commercial and industrial development to some 42 per cent, when the UNC was adamant that 90 per cent of the land must be devoted to agriculture.
 
He said he supported the minority report of the special select committee submitted by the UNC members, Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan and Jennifer Jones-Kernahan, which is diametrically opposed to the majority report of the committee chaired by Senator Joan Yuille-Williams.
After a heated debate on Friday, however, the report was passed by the Senate, with little—if any—of the reservations expressed by the Independent and Opposition benches being taken into consideration.
 
 

©2004-2005 Trinidad Publishing Company Limited

Sugar union: No shortage of cane cutters

By Yvonne Webb

http://legacy.guardian.co.tt/archives/2005-01-11/business2.html

The All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers’ Trade union has contradicted Government’s assertion that there is a shortage of cane cutters.

At the last post-Cabinet media briefing, acting Agriculture Minister John Rahael said they were considering importing cane cutters from Guyana because of a shortage locally.

He said he was told by the Trinidad Islandwide Cane Farmers’ Association that their cane was not being harvested even though they were paying cane cutters $150 a day.

ATSGWTU president general Rudranath Indarsingh also said statements by Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis, that former sugar workers had moved on and unemployment was down, were inaccurate.

Indarsingh said: “There is no shortage of cane cutters. It is a straight case of the former sugar workers not being willing to commit themselves to the sugar industry because of the dehumanising and Cepep-like conditions under which they are being asked to perform work for private contractors and cane farmers.”

He said Government did not understand the reality as it related to the current status of the sugar industry and the unemployment figures in central and south Trinidad as a result.

“Minister Rahael must understand that the industrial relations terrorism started out in 2003 with the closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd and continues to exist because none of the cane farming associations can provide or facilitate decent conditions of work, which are articulated by the International Labour Organisation,” the trade unionist said.

“The reality is that persons have not moved on or gained what is recognised by the ILO as sustainable employment, because ex-sugar workers have not been able to gain employment which pays wages above the levels of the minimum wages order and unionised terms and conditions of employment,” he added.