Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

There is push­back from sev­er­al pub­lic sec­tor trade unions fol­low­ing Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s an­nounce­ment of a pro­posed five per cent wage in­crease.

Dur­ing the 2024/2025 na­tion­al bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, Im­bert said the Gov­ern­ment recog­nised that the four per cent of­fered to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers for 2014-19 was not large, but it was all that the Gov­ern­ment could have af­ford­ed then.

“I have to­day in­struct­ed the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer to make the nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions to com­mence ne­go­ti­a­tions with those trade unions that ac­cept­ed the pre­vi­ous four per cent of­fer for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2020 to De­cem­ber 2022.

“The Gov­ern­ment, even in the face of our chal­leng­ing fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances, has de­cid­ed to of­fer an in­crease of five per cent.”  Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Mar­tin Lum Kin told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that ne­go­ti­a­tion, by pub­lic de­cree, must be re­ject­ed.

“This Gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to cir­cum­vent the es­tab­lished method­ol­o­gy of bi­lat­er­al ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the em­ploy­er, that is, the CPO, and the rel­e­vant recog­nised as­so­ci­a­tion.”

Lum Kin said gov­ern­ment’s move to make an of­fer in the pub­lic do­main with the hope that the as­so­ci­a­tion would ac­cept it was “out­ra­geous” and “cal­lous”.

“One must be re­mind­ed that the es­tab­lished method­ol­o­gy of the ex­ter­nal labour mar­ket, which does not utilise the per­cent­age in­crease but clo­sure of the gap in the mar­ket, has been recog­nised by the CPO as the best method of salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.”

Pres­i­dent of the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (FSA) Keone Guy shared Lum Kin’s po­si­tion and de­scribed the Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s ac­tion as dis­re­spect­ful and a vi­o­la­tion of the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process.

“We are dis­sat­is­fied with the gov­ern­ment’s an­nounce­ment of five per cent that is gen­er­al­ly be­cause not on­ly is it gross­ly in­ad­e­quate but the process; the Gov­ern­ment seems to not recog­nise that wages with­in the pub­lic ser­vice should be de­ter­mined af­ter a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process is con­clud­ed and that process will de­ter­mine what will be a suit­able in­crease to work­ers, so to have the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance stand in the par­lia­ment and in­di­cate that this will be the in­crease, to us, seems dis­re­spect­ful.”

On Mon­day, Im­bert al­so stat­ed that the PSA and NUGFW’s re­fusal of the four per cent of­fer can­not be al­lowed to de­lay ne­go­ti­a­tions for the next bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od with oth­er pub­lic sec­tor trade unions, who rep­re­sent more work­ers.

How­ev­er, PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste told Guardian Me­dia that the Fi­nance Min­is­ter mis­rep­re­sent­ed the facts when he stat­ed that the PSA re­port­ed a dis­pute.

“It was the Gov­ern­ment through the CPO that, af­ter two meet­ings, re­port­ed a dis­pute. More­over, it’s dic­ta­tor­ship and bul­ly­ing on full dis­play. Ne­go­ti­a­tions by de­cree. To hell with col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

“The union’s role is to agree to the de­cree. This is ob­jec­tion­able and must be re­sist­ed not just for our­selves but for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of work­ers. There is a pur­pose to ne­go­ti­a­tions, that is, to, at a min­i­mum, main­tain the stan­dard of liv­ing of those we rep­re­sent.”

The As­sis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) Trevor John­son al­so weighed in on the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed five per cent of­fer.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s post-bud­get pan­el on Mon­day night, he said, “The labour move­ment will be tread­ing cau­tious­ly with re­gards to this of­fer be­cause, based on the ex­pe­ri­ence we had with the four per­cent, the min­is­ter made it ap­pear that all the unions that signed off on the four per­cent did so will­ing­ly, but that was not the case. The four per cent when it was of­fered was not re­al­ly what we would call col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing be­cause, ba­si­cal­ly, it was the CPO on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment say­ing take it or leave it.”

Head of the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion Ger­ard Gor­don said they were look­ing for­ward to the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“Our goal is to at­tempt to bring our ne­go­ti­a­tions cur­rent and to not lag be­hind or have pe­ri­ods lag be­hind, so for us we are rear­ing to go to see what we are able to achieve.”

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Em­ploy­ers Con­sul­ta­tive As­so­ci­a­tion Ronald Ram­lo­gan said he was hope­ful for am­i­ca­ble di­a­logue among the trade union mem­ber­ship and the CPO.

“We would en­cour­age both sides to en­sure a good-face ap­proach is al­ways adopt­ed to these types of ne­go­ti­a­tions as is man­dat­ed by the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, notwith­stand­ing a more con­cert­ed ef­fort to im­prove the time­li­ness of these pub­lic sec­tor ne­go­ti­a­tions.” Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union (TI­WU) Shawn Roberts, which rep­re­sents MTS of­fi­cers, added that the $2 in­crease to pub­lic sec­tor wages is an ap­par­ent ap­peal to vot­ers ahead of the gen­er­al elec­tion.

“In the na­tion­al bud­get, con­cern­ing the min­i­mum wage go­ing from $20.50 to $22.50, it is a po­lit­i­cal ploy to sweet­en the work­ing class, to get votes for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. It is some­thing that is not new to us.”