00:00Speaking with the Morning Edition, President of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers
00:05Association, Crystal Bevin-Ash says that while unions were assured of a response after delivering
00:12a joint letter to the Prime Minister earlier this week, they are still awaiting formal
00:17feedback.
00:18To date, we have not received anything directly from the Prime Minister. We have heard utterances
00:23in the Parliament, just as everybody else, because it's in the public space of course,
00:27but nothing formal. I know that the Prime Minister is very busy, so she may be, she said that
00:32she will respond to us in the Parliament, and we would want to take the Prime Minister, that
00:36I would, because we know that she is an honourable individual.
00:40Ash says the Labour movement is not eager to pursue legal action, but warns that option
00:47is not off the table. He stresses that meaningful dialogue would be more reasonable.
00:52Isn't it more prudent to meet with us, have a discussion, see if we can come to some sort
00:59of understanding, rather than jump to going to the court to pay and use taxpayers' money?
01:04Let us be realistic. We are seeing that we have to be economically prudent, financially
01:08prudent, and we are short on cash all over the world. They are experiencing a lot of financial
01:13challenges. So why would we simply want to jump to that conclusion? And I know that the Prime
01:17Minister is a very intelligent individual, so I don't expect her to want to say, listen,
01:21let's go to court, might have stated it, but I don't think she really meant it.
01:25Also speaking on the morning edition was President of the Steel Workers' Union, Timothy Bailey,
01:31who questions the government's position, noting that while officials have praised the state
01:37of emergency for reducing crime, they continue to cite security concerns in restricting protest.
01:43If at the beginning of the SOE, your regulations did not have these draconian measures, and you
01:51are saying now that from the beginning of the SOE to now, the crime situation has improved,
01:56then what is the justification for inserting these regulations now? It does not make sense to us.
02:02Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
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