State-owned T&T Electricity Commission (T&TEC) yesterday accepted the Industrial Court's recommendation of a nine per cent salary increase for more than 2,000 employees. This came two weeks after the court first made the recommendation on April 5. The decision settled negotiations between the company and the Oilfields Workers' Trade Union (OWTU) for 2009-2011. This means the company will have to pay more than $170 million in backpay to employees for that period.
The company will also have to pay an additional $120 million annually as a result of the salary increase.
According to acting general manager of T&TEC Kelvin Ramsook, the increase, which was ordered to be applied at two per cent for 2009, two per cent for 2010 and five per cent for 2011, will be applied to workers' salaries by the end of May. All backpay is expected to be given to workers by August. President general of the OWTU Ancel Roget described the process as a long and difficult road. "This settlement should have been arrived at for quite a while now, and the fact that it came so late in the day is still an injustice to T&TEC workers," said Roget. Roget said he felt the court had performed with a great level of independence, having looked at both the challenges of T&TEC and that of the worker.
He said in addition to the nine per cent increase and increases in allowances, the settlement allowed weekly-paid workers to benefit from a company savings plan to which both the company and worker contribute. Roget maintained that there was a five per cent wage cap, but the OWTU was able to remove that cap. "As far as we are concerned, there is no cap at all," Roget said. The OWTU also won a nine per cent increase for workers of the Petroleum Company of T&T and the National Petroleum Marketing Company Ltd. Roget said the next step would be to develop and produce proposals for the new rounds of negotiations for T&TEC for the period 2012-2014.
