Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dr Daryl Din­di­al yes­ter­day met with sev­er­al unions in a bid to “high­light the cur­rent eco­nom­ic land­scape and pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the State’s fi­nan­cial sta­tus.”

In a me­dia re­lease, the CPO’s of­fi­cer said an in­vi­ta­tion was sent to 11 unions and as­so­ci­a­tions, as well as the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF), which is not rep­re­sent­ed by ei­ther a union or an as­so­ci­a­tion, for the vir­tu­al meet­ing, which in­clud­ed mem­bers of the Min­istry of Fi­nance team.

The State has had a fixed rate of four per cent for unions for re­cent col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods. The meet­ing was a pre­req­ui­site to fu­ture wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, fo­cus­ing on the cur­rent eco­nom­ic land­scape and show­cas­ing the state’s fi­nan­cial sta­tus.

Of the 11 in­vit­ed par­ties, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion re­quest­ed an­oth­er date due to pri­or com­mit­ments, while the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), the on­ly body to re­ject the four per cent of­fer, did not show up.

The CPO said the PSA wrote in­di­cat­ing their un­avail­abil­i­ty, say­ing, “Any dis­cus­sions on the econ­o­my in­tend­ed for the pur­pose of ne­go­ti­a­tions should take place around a ne­go­ti­a­tion ta­ble dur­ing bi­lat­er­al talks con­fi­den­tial­ly be­tween the as­so­ci­a­tion and the CPO.”

The CPO la­belled the PSA’s po­si­tion as “un­for­tu­nate,” as the Fi­nance Min­istry’s of­fi­cials, who are trained econ­o­mists, could have pro­vid­ed the union with need­ed con­text on the state of the econ­o­my. He added that the meet­ing would not have put a lim­it to fu­ture ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The CPO said the next step is set­tling on mu­tu­al­ly con­ve­nient dates for meet­ings with the CPO and the Min­istry of Fi­nance be­gin­ning next month.