Reflecting but Not Resting -Lessons of 9/07

​Reflecting but Not Resting
-Lessons of 9/07
Today, a poll was published in a daily newspaper confirming the anxiety among the population about the provision and quality of basic needs and about their safety as well as concerns about governance in the society.
But, it appears that on Friday, the day designated by the trade unions as a day of protest on the very issues the population is concerned about, there was not the kind of support for the call to action as on other occasions in the past.
Since early Friday morning, the battle of claims of ‘success’ and ‘victory’ and ‘who win’ between the government and the organisers of the day of protest has been raging.
It is the battle for ‘hearts and minds’ that has accompanied national protest actions since the 1980’s including the Day of Resistance in 1989. On that occasion, the fact that the workers, maxi operators and other elements of the people had overwhelmingly supported the call to action to protest government’s policies could not be disputed by the spokespersons for the state. Nothing moved that day. This time was different.
Though signaled nearly 2½ months ago, it was apparent that September 7, 2018 was nothing approaching the Day of Resistance in terms of the support for the call to action. Nor was it the total failure which this Government hoped for when it launched its unprecedented campaign of intimidation for a full week in advance.
The desperation to claim ‘victory’ was probably best articulated by the Education Minister’s statement that ‘on any school day teacher turnout of 70-75% is normal, so if you extrapolate the 52% turnout, you will see that it was not supported.”. Even if one were to accept that 25-30% absenteeism is normal (sic) then a further 25% absenteeism must mean that there was a significant increase. One can only hope that that is not the logic that our chief educator is inculcating in our schools.
The union leaders countered claiming a 68% success, citing a 90% absenteeism at Petrotrin as its only specifically quantified measure.
What do we learn from all of this?
Times and conditions change and so do the strengths of the social forces engaged in continuous conflict to decide the fate of the society. The situation in 1980’s is not the same as in 2018 though the issues about which there is anxiety closely resemble, except perhaps for the pervasive crime situation.
How, then, can the difference in outcome be accounted for?
One prominent labour figure said today, the problem is ‘apathy’. Is it? How can a population be overwhelmingly be concerned about issues affecting their lives and not respond to a call to action?
Perhaps one answer may be found in the state of the trade union movement and the quality of its organizational work.
The trade union movement was in 1989 moving toward another unification under a single umbrella which was achieved 2 years later. Today, “The on-again-off-again unity of the trade union movement has led to the situation in recent years of the existence of not 2, but, 3 trade union ‘centres’ – NATUC, FITUN and JTUM.”. This coupled with the declining levels of organizing within individual unions provide some explanation for a mobilisation campaign that has not ‘rallied the troops’.
Workers are not unthinking beings and to act decisively they must be convinced of the justness of their cause and be confident in the strength their unity brings even to deal with any threatened retaliation. This requires identification of the issues and statement of the demands for addressing them.
The trade union must determine if they did clearly identify the issues and state their positions.
There is a constant and unceasing battle for hearts and minds. In this battle, no side is idle.
For months, the government has executed a constant ‘air war’ of messaging conjuring up the IMF bogey and attempting to convince the workers that they were doing ‘everything’ to keep them in jobs, even ‘borrowing to pay salaries’.
On the specific issue of the planned closure of the refinery, Government has executed a well-organised propaganda strategy – blaming everyone and everything for the disaster in Petrotrin and painting themselves and the PM as the ‘courageous, strong saviours of the nation’ from the plague of Petrotrin.
They have largely disguised their own role in the failed and costly projects and related debts that saddled the company with “massive debt and loss-making” that the PM denounced. They hid the fact that those projects, ‘subject of massive cost overruns and lengthy delays’, as the PM put it, were approved by the Cabinet which this PM and several current Ministers were a part.
Add to this barrage of obfuscating propaganda, a week of threats to jail and fine and cut pay and sue workers in their personal capacity led by the PM and 4 Ministers and to further disarm their party faithful remind them that the day of Rest and Reflection was also the 3rd anniversary of this ‘saviour’ party that had warded off the IMF bogey.
Herman Goering must be applauding the government’s propaganda blitz, so well following his directions which he stated during his trial at Nuremberg: “…. the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders; that is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”.
Substitute the descriptions of the “anyone who opposes the government” for ‘pacifists’ in Goering’s advisory and this could be Public Administration or Education Minister, the AG or PM speaking last week.
The union’s, on the other hand, did not grasp the effectiveness of the government’s ‘air war’ and failed to conduct the ‘ground war’ necessary to combat its influence on their troops.
So disorganized were the unions that on Friday, unlike on the Day of Resistance and other national days of action, they could not gather or provide clear figures to demonstrate the level of support shown in various workplaces.
Even the information skirmish on the day, they lost to their opponents.
One must never take one’s own ‘soldiers’ for granted.
Friday demonstrated the weakness of the ideological state of the workers movement.
Those who are anxious and concerned to the extent that the people of this country are will awaken to the need to act in their own interest if they are to have any solution to those issues causing the anxiety and concern they feel.
What is required is clear, conscious and organised leadership.
That is the ingredient that was present in 1989 and that is diminished in 2018.
All is not lost, though.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Worker Who Refuses to
Abandon the Mission of 1937
9 September 2018

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