标签： Trinidad and Tobago

As street protests by disgruntled workers unfolded in the nation’s capital yesterday, a landmark $66.1 million settlement between the state-owned Power Generation Company (PowerGen) and the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) was formally tabled in the national Parliament. The historic deal closes a nearly decadelong industrial dispute that first emerged in 2015, bringing long-overdue financial relief to roughly 150 eligible frontline PowerGen employees who had been waiting for resolution of their unmet wage claims across two prior bargaining cycles. Public Utilities Minister Barry Padarath laid out the full details of the agreement during a parliamentary address, framing the settlement as a tangible reversal of nearly a decade of worker neglect under the previous People’s National Movement (PNM) administration. The negotiated package delivers a cumulative 9% wage increase phased across five years, with tiered annual increments of 0.5% for 2016, 3% for 2017, 1% for 2018, 1.5% for 2019, and 3% for 2020. All backpay owed to the 150 OWTU-represented workers is scheduled to be disbursed in full no later than December 15, putting critical funds directly into households ahead of the Christmas holiday season. Rather than dragging the case through a prolonged ruling process at the Industrial Court, the two parties reached the full agreement through good-faith bilateral negotiations, removing the long-pending dispute from the court’s docket entirely. Minister Padarath emphasized that the deal extends far beyond a simple financial transaction, framing it as long-overdue justice for employees who were left in limbo for years by the former administration’s inaction. He echoed a recent public challenge from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who had called on all trade union leaders to prioritize their members’ livelihoods over partisan political interests, noting that this settlement serves as a concrete demonstration of how collaborative, meaningful dialogue outperforms divisive political posturing that the minister labeled “political thuggery.” The breakthrough deal is also expected to create a clear, collaborative precedent for resolving outstanding wage claims for an additional 87 PowerGen staff members, including 26 employees represented by the Senior Staff Association and 61 non-union professional personnel, whose bargaining terms have historically been aligned with agreements struck between PowerGen and the OWTU. Officials are already optimistic that the momentum from this successful negotiation will accelerate resolution of those remaining pending cases. The minister also highlighted the agreement’s significance as the government rolls out broader national initiatives to expand electricity generation and distribution capacity across the country, noting that fair, timely compensation for power sector workers is a foundational requirement for building a more robust, reliable national energy grid. Padarath went on to briefly address widespread unplanned electricity outages that impacted multiple communities across Trinidad in recent days, noting that the disruptions stemmed from unplanned shutdowns at independent power generation facilities. He acknowledged the significant inconvenience the outages caused for residential citizens and local businesses, confirming that state utility T&TEC is coordinating closely with Trinidad Generation Unlimited and all independent power producers to roll out targeted corrective measures, restore full generating capacity, and stabilize grid operations. Padarath attributed the root cause of the outage vulnerabilities to chronic underinvestment and poor maintenance practices across power purchase firms during the 9.5-year tenure of the former PNM administration, adding that ongoing technical investigations are being conducted to identify systemic gaps and prevent future recurrence. He concluded by stating that the current administration’s commitment goes far beyond temporary supply restoration, with a long-term mandate to upgrade the overall reliability and resilience of the national electricity network for all residents.

In a heated parliamentary session held yesterday in the House of Representatives, legislators voted to greenlight the motion appointing Assistant Commissioner of Police Anand Ramesar to serve in an acting capacity as Deputy Commissioner of Police, following a pointed debate from Opposition lawmakers who raised unresolved transparency concerns over the vetting process for the senior law enforcement post. The motion to confirm the Police Service Commission (PSC)’s official nomination of Ramesar was formally tabled by Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander, before facing rigorous scrutiny from Port of Spain South MP and Opposition member Keith Scotland, SC, who led the Opposition’s critique of the appointment documentation provided to legislative bodies. Scotland outlined that his team had conducted a full review of all submitted materials, including the formal PSC nomination notification and Ramesar’s professional curriculum vitae, but found no evidence that the independent oversight body had properly vetted and documented the officer’s full background and antecedents before placing him on the final merit shortlist for the promotion. The veteran MP pressed government representatives to disclose, during the debate’s closing rejoinder, whether the PSC had been furnished with complete personal and professional background records for Ramesar prior to issuing its formal recommendation, and warned the administration against invoking national security as a blanket justification to withhold critical appointment details from Parliament and the Trinidad and Tobago public at large. Scotland emphasized that the stakes of rigorous, fully transparent vetting for senior police leadership had never been higher, in light of the recent passage of the controversial Special Operations Act – legislation he labeled draconian, which grants expanded policing powers including direct oversight of seven designated special operation districts across the twin-island nation. He noted that the sweeping new authority delegated to senior police leaders made exhaustive scrutiny of every high-ranking appointment a non-negotiable priority, adding that the incomplete documentation left the Opposition with reasonable, unaddressed doubt over Ramesar’s suitability to hold the senior post at this critical juncture for national security. Despite the extended debate over transparency and vetting standards, the motion proceeded to a formal vote, with 25 Government bench MPs voting in support of the nomination, and all 13 Opposition legislators casting votes against the appointment.

Port of Spain – Trinidad and Tobago’s historic break from decades of consistent support for annual UN General Assembly resolutions demanding an end to the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba was formally defended in national parliament yesterday by Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs Sean Sobers, who framed the unexpected negative vote as an act of solidarity with ordinary Cuban citizens rather than a rejection of their well-being.
The Caribbean nation cast its opposing ballot during the latest UNGA vote on Wednesday, joining more than 45 countries globally that declined to back the Cuban-sponsored measure – either via direct opposition, abstention, or full absence from the tally. Sobers emphasized that this marked the lowest level of global support for the long-running resolution since its first introduction in 1992, when only three nations voted against it.
Detailing regional voting patterns across the Western Hemisphere, Sobers noted that alongside Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Paraguay also voted no, while Chile, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, and Peru abstained. A further six Caribbean and Latin American states, including several Caricom member nations, were not present for the vote, bringing the total share of Caricom members declining to support the resolution to over 50%.
Sobers clarified that the annual UN resolution carries no legally binding authority, and cannot compel the United States to roll back its sanctions regime, as that power rests exclusively with the U.S. Congress under its constitutional mandate. He went on to argue that decades of socialist governance under what he termed a dictatorial system, rather than external sanctions alone, were responsible for Cuba’s prolonged economic stagnation, pointing out that prior to the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the island boasted one of the most prosperous economies in Latin America, with leading regional rates of per capita consumption of food goods and household ownership of consumer durables including cars, telephones and radios.
This policy shift, Sobers explained, forms part of a comprehensive ongoing review of Trinidad and Tobago’s foreign policy initiated after the United National Congress administration took office in 2025, designed to align the country’s international engagements with core domestic priorities of building a stronger, safer and more prosperous nation. He noted that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had first publicly signalled this new stance back in February 2026, during her address to the 50th Regular Meeting of Caricom Heads of Government in St Kitts, where she openly called for political reform in Cuba.
Sobers stressed that it was ethically inconsistent for Caribbean nations to demand multi-party democracy, free and fair elections, and full political freedoms for their own populations while remaining silent on the absence of those same rights for Cuban citizens. He took the opportunity to criticize parliamentary opposition members for what he described as their historical alignment with the Cuban government’s diplomatic initiatives, claiming their political track record revealed a preference for unaccountable power not transferred via free, competitive elections.
Responding to a question from Opposition MP Marvin Gonzales, who noted that Persad-Bissessar had publicly pledged full support to the Cuban government during her 2010-2015 tenure in office, Sobers stated that foreign policy must be continuously updated to reflect rapidly shifting global contexts and the evolving lived realities of the Cuban people under autocratic rule. He reaffirmed that Trinidad and Tobago would continue to advocate for a free, democratic and prosperous Cuba across all regional and global multilateral forums, including Caricom and the United Nations.

A major labour demonstration that unfolded across Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, has sparked a fierce war of words between Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and the island’s trade union leadership, with the two sides offering wildly divergent assessments of the march’s scale, purpose and outcomes. The cross-city procession, which set off from Memorial Park, snaked through the Woodbrook neighbourhood, and concluded at Woodford Square, drew affiliated members from 12 separate labour bodies, including representatives from the nursing union, the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW), and the Seamen and Waterfront Workers Trade Union (SWWTU), alongside grassroots community supporters and a small contingent of political figures.
Leading the pro-march assessment is Michael Annisette, General Secretary of the National Trade Union Centre (NATUC), who framed the day of action as an unmitigated success designed to elevate long-simmering working-class grievances rather than advance partisan political goals. Annisette confirmed thousands of attendees joined the procession, holding placards that demanded urgent action on stalled wage negotiations, job security, systemic social equity and improved national governance. Marchers staged a noisy, peaceful demonstration outside Persad-Bissessar’s St Clair office, chanting calls for her administration to step down, while Annisette emphasized the event was intentionally structured to avoid becoming a partisan political rally: no elected political figures, including Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles, were invited to address the assembled crowd, even as opposition representatives joined the march route in a show of solidarity. Annisette declined to directly address the notable absence of two major labour groups, the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) and the Public Services Association (PSA), noting that the demonstration’s core mission centred exclusively on advancing worker interests, not partisan affiliations, and that all labour allies were welcome to stand in solidarity with their peers. For her part, Beckles confirmed her presence at the march was rooted in her personal and familial ties to the labour movement, pushing back against criticisms from the Prime Minister that her attendance represented partisan meddling, and accusing Persad-Bissessar of unnecessarily injecting racial framing into discussions of fundamental worker rights.
In stark contrast, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar took to social media in the immediate aftermath of the march to dismiss the entire demonstration as a total, spectacular failure, branding it a “hate protest” driven by racial animus and partisan hostility toward her ruling United National Congress (UNC) government rather than legitimate labour concerns. She published an aerial photograph of the procession alongside her remarks, claiming that the well-resourced groups that had benefited financially under the previous People’s National Movement (PNM) administration – including wealthy business elites, alleged criminal networks and affluent members of Trinidad and Tobago’s Indo-Trinidadian, Chinese and Middle Eastern communities – had failed to turn out in the large numbers that protest organizers had promised. Persad-Bissessar went on to accuse union leaders of selective political activism, questioning why comparable mass demonstrations had not been staged during the PNM’s 10-year tenure in office, a period she claimed had seen public sector workers receive 0% salary increases and go years without receiving owed backpay. While she thanked the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service for their successful efforts to keep the march peaceful and prevent violence against unrelated bystanders along the route, she issued a direct rebuke to attendees, telling them their protest’s purported partisan and racially charged goals had been soundly rejected by the wider national population, and urging them to return to work the following Monday. At the same time, she extended an olive branch to labour groups that had continued to engage in formal negotiations with her administration, confirming that the Ministry of Public Administration had been directed to immediately fast-track all outstanding collective bargaining talks to resolve long-delayed wage settlements and backpay claims.
Local outlet the Trinidad Express observed several hundred attendees at the march, and submitted a formal request to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service for an official verified headcount of participants, which had not been released at the time of publication. The public clash between the government and labour movement unfolds against a backdrop of months of rising tensions over unmet labour demands, with the two sides deeply divided over both the substance of pending worker benefits and the role of partisan politics in Trinidad and Tobago’s labour advocacy landscape.

In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with Trinidad and Tobago’s *Express* newspaper, Cuban Ambassador Gustavo Veliz issued a sharp, unflinching rebuke of Washington’s decades-long economic, commercial, and financial embargo against his island nation, framing the policy as a deliberate crime that pushes ordinary Cubans toward a preventable humanitarian catastrophe. Veliz emphasized that any nation that amplifies the United States’ official narrative justifying the embargo is effectively complicit in a policy that directly endangers civilian lives, noting that every minute of the blockade’s enforcement risks avoidable deaths – including those of children – triggered by crippling electricity shortages, blocked access to life-saving medications, and widespread scarcity of basic daily necessities. The diplomat went on to accuse the U.S. of intentionally manufacturing a crisis in Cuba to weaponize it for political gain, while attempting to shift global attention away from the embargo’s catastrophic human toll by centering bad-faith debates about Cuba’s domestic political system and supposed democratic shortcomings. “This is never a genuine conversation about governance or human rights,” Veliz stressed. “It is a deliberate distraction to cover up the unjust energy siege and collective punishment being inflicted on 11 million Cuban people.” Veliz further rejected Washington’s self-assumed moral authority to lecture other nations on human rights, pointing to a litany of documented abuses within U.S. borders and beyond: extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea, systemic police brutality targeting racial minorities, the growing militarization of domestic U.S. cities, inhumane treatment of migrant populations, and the relentless wave of mass school shootings that have killed thousands of American children in recent decades. He noted that these widespread, unaddressed violations completely strip the U.S. of any legitimate standing to criticize other sovereign nations’ human rights records. While Veliz declined to issue a direct public condemnation of the Trinidad and Tobago government’s recent decision to break with 50 years of longstanding regional diplomatic tradition and vote alongside the U.S. against a United Nations General Assembly resolution demanding an immediate end to the Cuban embargo, he did not shy away from highlighting the deep, historic ties between Port of Spain and Havana. He recalled that Trinidad and Tobago was one of only four nations worldwide to formally establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba back in 1972, at the height of Washington’s efforts to isolate the island completely on the global stage. Even amid the diplomatic rift over the recent UN vote, Veliz extended warm gratitude to Trinidad and Tobago’s general public for their ongoing grassroots solidarity with the Cuban people, and expressed confidence that the decades-long fraternal bond between Cuba and the wider Caribbean Community (CARICOM) bloc would persist despite temporary political divergences. Veliz framed the results of the Wednesday UN General Assembly vote as a sweeping, landmark victory for Cuba and international law: the non-binding resolution secured overwhelming support from 130 nations across every region of the globe, with only 17 countries voting in opposition and 25 choosing to abstain. The ambassador noted that the lopsided vote margin makes clear that Washington’s aggressive, decades-long campaign to isolate Cuba has left the U.S. itself increasingly diplomatically isolated on the world stage, despite extraordinary last-minute diplomatic pressure exerted by the U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN to coerce smaller nations into switching their votes to oppose the resolution. Veliz emphasized that no amount of U.S. political coercion, intimidation, or economic pressure will ever silence the global community’s unified demand for an end to what he described as the genocidal, unjust blockade, and reaffirmed Cuba’s unwavering commitment to defending its national sovereignty as a sovereign independent state.