GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Protest ac­tion will con­tin­ue at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, un­til salary ne­go­ti­a­tions are sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly set­tled.

So said the pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT), Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad. She told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the union is yet to “hear some­thing of­fi­cial from the Gov­ern­ment.”

“The Gov­ern­ment has to send an of­fi­cial po­si­tion to the prin­ci­pal who rep­re­sents the uni­ver­si­ty, who is our em­ploy­er. We don’t ne­go­ti­ate with the Gov­ern­ment. We ne­go­ti­ate with our em­ploy­er, so the Gov­ern­ment has to now send an of­fi­cial com­mu­niqué to the prin­ci­pal, which she will re­lay to us, which we haven’t re­ceived,” Ram­per­sad ex­plained.

The union urged the uni­ver­si­ty’s man­age­ment and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert to fi­nalise ne­go­ti­a­tions swift­ly.

Last Fri­day, WIGUT in­ten­si­fied its protest as it main­tained that its mem­bers con­tin­ued to face chal­lenges by liv­ing on 2014 salaries amidst ris­ing in­fla­tion and in­creased liv­ing costs.

The UWI work­ers were of­fered a two per cent in­crease from the Gov­ern­ment and are cur­rent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ing for the 2015 to 2017 col­lec­tive pe­ri­od.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, how­ev­er, said it was ‘ab­surd’ to ask the tax­pay­ers of this coun­try to fund the cur­rent pro­pos­al of WIGUT, which would cost up­wards of $700 mil­lion in back pay.

“If we were to ac­cept the pro­pos­al from WIGUT, the back pay would be $701 mil­lion as of March 2024. The cost of the four per cent of­fer, which we have of­fered to every­body else and which is be­ing ac­cept­ed by most trade unions, is es­ti­mat­ed at back pay of 79 mil­lion and 12 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture ... I am told the WIGUT is ask­ing for the fol­low­ing. With ef­fect from Ju­ly 2014, eight per cent. With ef­fect from Ju­ly 2015 an­oth­er eight per cent and with ef­fect from 2016 an­oth­er eight per cent, a to­tal of 24 per cent for the pe­ri­od 2014 to 2017,” Im­bert said.

How­ev­er, he was knocked by Ram­per­sad, who said this was not the way to ne­go­ti­ate. “What you heard in the Par­lia­ment is not of­fi­cial. That is nev­er the pro­ce­dure in which we ne­go­ti­ate with the Par­lia­ment or over the me­dia. So what you’re hear­ing in the Par­lia­ment must be po­lit­i­cal foot­ball,” she said. Ram­per­sad main­tained that protest ac­tion would con­tin­ue un­til a rea­son­able of­fer was giv­en.