The leadership of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM), dressed in black and covering their mouth, staged a peaceful protest outside the Hall of Justice one year to the date when the Kamla Persad Bissessar administration imposed the SOE in a bid to deal with an escalating crime problem.

But the trade unions had always complained that the SOE, which ended on December 5 last year, was intended to curtail their activities particularly as they planned demonstrations against the government’s five per cent wage cap in the public sector.

JTUM leader and president of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), Ancil Roget told reporters that the excuse given by the government for the SOE was the crime situation, but to date criminal activities are the continuing unabated.

He said the unions would not allow the four-party coalition to forget what it did to the entire population.

“Some 8,000 young African men, we don’t know where those men are today, and not one successful case prosecuted and the country just goes on with business as usual.