View Point

“How sleep you now, unfeeling kings? Does one human feeling creep through your hearts’ remorseless sleep?”   These were the words of the poet Percy Shelley challenging suppression of the working class. There are no words strong enough to condemn the cruelty of the management of Paria Fuel Trading Company …

Stephen R Covey, the American author of First Things First, said: ‘We are free to choose our actions… but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.’  As a nation, we need to contemplate this as we mourn the loss of the four men in a recent …

“[…] People seem to think that this latest ruling means that all persons charged with murder in Trinidad and Tobago will automatically be granted bail. This is not so.  “The Court’s judgement merely means that persons charged with murder in T&T may now apply for bail…” The following Letter to …

The Industrial Court delivered a judgement on 18 February 2022 and ruled that it would be too expensive for T&TEC to pay any increased salaries at this time. As such the workers at the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) were not awarded any salary increases for the period 2015 …

Views reportedly expressed by the well-qualified presenters at a webinar, entitled ‘Hosting and managing the Carnival Experience in Trinidad and Tobago in 2022 and Beyond’, converged with much of what I have been writing concerning Carnival and cultural development matters over several years, including last Sunday. The Trinidad Express newspaper …

Nobody wants to live in fear. Nobody wants to lose a loved one to crime or be victimised.  The pain ricochets through the community as others experience the wrenching loss that descends on us in sudden ways. Most believe that the government is responsible for public safety. But our reactions …

“[…] Employers, including state enterprises, […] are retrenching their workforce of both unionised and non-unionised employees and hiring labour-supply contractors, to provide low-wage workers (mostly temporary unsecured, non-benefit workers)—thereby greatly reducing their labour costs.  “Many refuse to pay NIS, placing this critical retirement, sickness and injury benefit system in jeopardy. …

“[…] These naysayers are largely ‘old’ people, not necessarily in age, but in their thinking. Old people are inclined to believe that their glory days were achieved with capabilities that have somehow been lost. “Blind to the present levels of care, comfort and convenience that were unimaginable in their youth, …

“[…] To what extent are those of us who abide by certain values and even endorse restorative justice and mediation required to continue to suffer in silence? “We are being exploited, demeaned, robbed, attacked and taken advantage of by persons whose main objective is to separate us from our property—so …

“[…] Port-of-Spain has been converted into a huge playground in which 130 carnival bands, varying in size from 50 to 5,000 or more, will parade along a route of about ten kilometres of streets and avenues that were carefully selected to form a complete loop. “[…] One section of the …

“[…] The leadership of the labour movement has lost credibility and trade union leaders are being seen as ‘smartmen’, confidence tricksters and hustlers along the lines of insurance agents, lawyers, bankers, policemen, politicians and priests. “[…] If we are to defend ourselves, as workers, against the renewed attacks from the …

‘Covid-19 will force us to re-build our economy,’ I wrote nearly two years ago, in April 2020. ‘We should place our vibrant performing arts at the core of the recovery agenda, not merely with the disproportionate focus on one transitory carnival season, which we may not even have in 2021. …