Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has di­rect­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to take a more di­rect role in re­solv­ing the im­passe over salary in­creas­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

There has been an on­go­ing dis­pute over wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT), the union rep­re­sent­ing aca­d­e­m­ic and se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive staff at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. The union has been ramp­ing up protest ac­tion at the uni­ver­si­ty amid the un­re­solved dis­pute.

Dr Row­ley spoke at the post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing at White­hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, just days af­ter Im­bert stat­ed that he was not di­rect­ly in­volved in the ne­go­ti­a­tions with WIGUT. The Fi­nance Min­is­ter had told Par­lia­ment last week that WIGUT’s de­mand for a 24 per cent salary in­crease with back pay amount­ing to $701 mil­lion can­not be met as it will be a huge bur­den on tax­pay­ers.

How­ev­er, WIGUT had been ask­ing for a face-to-face meet­ing with the Gov­ern­ment. 

The PM stat­ed, “That is a mat­ter which is un­der­way, and as I told you, I asked the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to get a lit­tle clos­er to it. I don’t want you to pre­tend that I have con­trol of it or un­der­stand it. It’s an in­dus­tri­al ac­tion. As a mat­ter of fact, I came from there.

“As you may have for­got­ten, I was the head of de­part­ment at UWI for years. So, I don’t want to pre­tend that I know what I re­al­ly don’t know. But the process­es will work, and I hope we don’t cut our own throats in try­ing to equate cer­tain things.” 

But econ­o­mist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, who heads WIGUT, ex­pressed mixed sen­ti­ments re­gard­ing Dr Row­ley’s in­volve­ment in their salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.

While she wel­comed his de­ci­sion to ad­dress the union’s con­cerns, she al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­cep­tance of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s pro­pos­als for salary in­creas­es for the PM, Pres­i­dent, Op­po­si­tion Leader, and oth­er pub­lic ser­vants, call­ing it “po­lit­i­cal sui­cide.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Ram­per­sad said, “He has agreed to pro­ceed with ac­cept­ing the SRC re­port, but there is bound to be a furore. We ex­pect a strong re­ac­tion—it’s in­evitable. This de­ci­sion won’t go un­no­ticed, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the two per cent and four per cent of­fers that have been made to work­ers while claim­ing the coun­try lacks funds.” 

She added, “One of the first ques­tions unions will ask is: Where is the mon­ey com­ing from to pay the politi­cians? A back­lash is to be ex­pect­ed, giv­en the cur­rent in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate. It will not be busi­ness as usu­al. With a loom­ing elec­tion, this move could very well amount to po­lit­i­cal sui­cide.” 

She added that what the union ap­pre­ci­ates most is an in­crease com­men­su­rate with what the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed for politi­cians, not­ing that such an ad­just­ment would tru­ly res­onate with them. 

Dr Ram­per­sad on Wednes­day out­lined plans to es­ca­late in­dus­tri­al ac­tions at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.  

UWI St Au­gus­tine cam­pus prin­ci­pal, Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, said, “I just want a sat­is­fac­to­ry res­o­lu­tion, and I am con­tin­u­ing to work hard to­ward that ob­jec­tive. Hope­ful­ly, be­fore Christ­mas, so that many peo­ple—stu­dents, staff, and the pub­lic who val­ue qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion—can have some joy.”