OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT) in­tends to es­ca­late in­dus­tri­al ac­tion amid an un­re­solved dis­pute over salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Yes­ter­day, an in­ter­nal cir­cu­lar at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus was is­sued de­tail­ing mea­sures to be tak­en by WIGUT and its mem­bers, in­clud­ing to “dis­con­nect, de­tach” in the first week of De­cem­ber. The mea­sures are aimed at in­creas­ing the pres­sure re­gard­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

WIGUT pres­i­dent Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad in a What­sApp mes­sage yes­ter­day con­firmed the cir­cu­lar’s au­then­tic­i­ty. In the cir­cu­lar, WIGUT an­nounced two weeks of ac­tion.

It stat­ed that from No­vem­ber 25 to 30-this week-there will be “rest, re­flec­tion, and re­search,” dur­ing which staff mem­bers are en­cour­aged to wear white and ab­stain from emails, phone calls, and de­part­men­tal meet­ings.

The cir­cu­lar added that this week will al­so, “pro­vide mem­bers with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage in crit­i­cal read­ing and re­flect on the sys­temic in­equities high­light­ed in the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s re­port.”

WIGUT said an of­fer of 0, 0, 2 was made for the pe­ri­od 2015 to 2017, which it re­ject­ed.

The union rep­re­sents UWI’s aca­d­e­m­ic, se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive, and pro­fes­sion­al staff.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert told the Par­lia­ment last week that WIGUT’s de­mand for a 24 per cent salary in­crease, with back­pay amount­ing to $701 mil­lion, can­not be met, since it will be a huge bur­den on tax­pay­ers.

On Tues­day, Im­bert clar­i­fied that he is not di­rect­ly in­volved in the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

How­ev­er, WIGUT has asked for a face-to-face meet­ing with the Gov­ern­ment.

It has al­ready la­belled its No­vem­ber 22 “Black­out Fri­day” a suc­cess.

Re­gard­ing fur­ther ac­tion, WIGUT’s cir­cu­lar stat­ed that from De­cem­ber 2 to 7, there will be a “week to dis­con­nect, dis­en­gage, and de­tach,” dur­ing which staff mem­bers are ex­pect­ed to wear black, cease op­er­a­tions across cam­pus, and with­hold du­ties such as mark­ing pa­pers, at­tend­ing meet­ings, or sup­port­ing cam­pus sys­tems. Es­sen­tial ser­vices like the li­brary, IT sys­tems, and ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fices are al­so ex­pect­ed to sus­pend op­er­a­tions.

The cir­cu­lar al­so cit­ed the po­ten­tial aca­d­e­m­ic im­pact, warn­ing that with­hold­ing se­mes­ter marks and course­work sub­mis­sions “could de­lay the aca­d­e­m­ic cal­en­dar and dis­rupt stu­dent progress.”

It added, “This move un­der­scores the se­ri­ous­ness of the un­re­solved salary ne­go­ti­a­tions and the dif­fi­cult work­ing con­di­tions faced by uni­ver­si­ty staff.”

Ef­forts to get a com­ment from WIGUT pres­i­dent Ram­per­sad for more de­tails on the in­dus­tri­al ac­tion were un­suc­cess­ful.