They have been at it for three weeks and no resolution in sight the waterfront workers are keeping up the pressure. Today they took their message to the doorsteps of Prime Minister Hon. Said Musa at his Fort George constituency office.
Musa has so far not met with the union and instead dispatched his Minister of National Development Hon. Assad Shoman to mediate negotiations between the union and owners at the private port. But even with Shoman's diplomacy, so far those negotiations are still in a deadlock. The Port and its private owners continue to maintain the right to hire the stevedores individually while the CWU and the stevedores say it's all or nothing.
As they circled the PM's office CWU General Secretary James McFoy today vowed to keep up the pressure.
James McFoy, CWU General Secretary
“This will be going on until we are satisfied with outcome of it.”
“What we keep on reiterating is that our position, and our members’ position, is that we want them to respect the union; for them to understand that the union is the body and we want everything to happen through the union. And that not after the fact because after the fact we might be very detrimental to what might happen because after they sign up and after they have their names and they control them then the union will have to fight from behind rather than from before.”
Wayne Cattouse, Stevedore
“I want the Prime Minister come out to the stevedores and talk to them because what Mr. Luke is trying to do is wrong.”
George Reneau, Stevedore
“The Prime Minister was on the air this morning on Krem and he is saying that he is with us but he has to prove that he is with us.”
“I pray that this problem is over but if the problem ain’t over we going to still continue to make everybody know that it isn’t solved yet.”
KS: Some people will ask if you guys are tired yet? You have been at it for three weeks now.
George Reneau,
“This is something that we fought for over 40 years so we can’t give up. This process doesn’t call to give up.”
Union executives were supposed to meet with Prime Minister Musa today but late this evening we were told that meeting never materialized. The union was however to supposed to present Port officials with their counter-proposals to Monday's memorandum of understanding which the union’s membership rejected. Last word this evening is that union officials only met with Assad Shoman.