Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an is hop­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions not yet con­clud­ed for the 2008 to 2010 bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od will be fi­nalised soon.He said the 2011 to 2013 bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od had start­ed and a new ap­proach would be re­quired to ar­rive at mu­tu­al­ly ac­cept­able set­tle­ments with­in the eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties.Dook­er­an said so­cial di­a­logu­ing would be used be­tween the ne­go­ti­at­ing teams.Pub­lic Ser­vice ne­go­ti­a­tions were ad­dressed ear­ly in Dook­er­an's pre­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship $54.6 bil­lion bud­get pack­age for the 2011-2012 fis­cal year on Mon­day.

Dook­er­an said ne­go­ti­a­tions for re­vised salaries and oth­er terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment for month­ly-paid em­ploy­ees in the Pub­lic Ser­vice, in­clud­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and the Teach­ing Ser­vice; dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment; To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions for 2008 to 2010/11 be­gan in 2010 and con­tin­ued against a back­ground of a slow­down in re­cov­ery ef­forts and fis­cal and fi­nan­cial un­cer­tain­ty.He was speak­ing at the Par­lia­ment, Tow­er D of the Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain.Dook­er­an said: "Notwith­stand­ing these dif­fi­cul­ties, set­tle­ments have been reached with the as­so­ci­a­tions and unions rep­re­sent­ing em­ploy­ees in the Civ­il Ser­vice and cer­tain Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties, Sec­ond Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers of the Pris­ons Ser­vice and the Sug­ar­cane Feeds Cen­tre."