PER Is Being Used to Interfere with Basic Trade Union Rights

Government should move pendulum in right direction

 The Fiji Labour Party website reports that the permit for a meeting of the Vanua Levu Farmers Milling Transport Union, granted by Government on September 15th, was cancelled just one hour before the meeting was due to start on 28th September. Similar last minute cancellations, with no explanation offered, were earlier experienced by the Fiji Trades Union Congress and the Fiji Public Service Association.

The website reports: "Members of the Union have been facing huge problems as a result of the malfunctioning of the mill. Lorries queuing outside the mill for hours on end is a common sight. Lorry drivers have had to put up with long periods of between 48-72 hours to offload when the mill is down due to mechanical problems...[The action denied the union the right] to protect the right of its members to hold meetings to discuss such operational problems and other matters associated with their livelihood."

Comment: In my book, these actions are a misuse of the Public Emergency Regulations.

• What destabilising, political threat was posed by a group of largely Indo-Fijan Labasa truck owners serving the Labasa sugar mill? 
• If Government (or is it the Military acting on its own?)  thought the meeting likely to be political, why issue a permit in the first place?
• If Government was concerned the meeting could become political, why not allow it to go ahead but with a monitor present?  
• When, if ever, will the union be allowed to meet?  

The cancellation of the permit, especially at such short notice, is a demeaning action that does  nothing to support the Attorney-General's assurances that the Essential Industries Decree, and similar measures, are not anti-union.

Many of the union members are probably supporters of the FLP but my guess is that as late as 2009, most of them would have supported the Bainimarama government. I wonder how many still do?

With so much still in its favour, why does  Government allow such petty, small-minded abuses of power to continue? What is their purpose? And what do they foretell for the future?