Healthy in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions re­quire far more than rhetoric, po­lit­i­cal point-scor­ing or threats of protests. The on­go­ing dis­putes in­volv­ing the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union (CWU) and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT), the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), and the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union (SWW­TU) and the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PATT) should serve as a warn­ing that the coun­try’s col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing sys­tem needs ur­gent at­ten­tion.

While each dis­pute has its own cir­cum­stances, they share a com­mon fea­ture: work­ers wait­ing far too long for set­tle­ments while em­ploy­ers and unions strug­gle to re­solve dif­fer­ences with­out con­fronta­tion.

The PSA-WASA dis­pute is par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing be­cause WASA pro­vides an es­sen­tial pub­lic ser­vice. The PSA has protest­ed stalled wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and called for pro­pos­als to be ad­vanced to the Min­istry of Fi­nance, while WASA main­tains that dis­cus­sions re­main on­go­ing. Such dis­agree­ments should not be al­lowed to de­scend in­to dis­putes over per­son­al­i­ties or com­pe­tence. Where con­cerns ex­ist, they should be in­de­pen­dent­ly ex­am­ined and ad­dressed based on facts.

The PSA’s broad­er ne­go­ti­a­tions with the State demon­strate both the pos­si­bil­i­ties and the costs of de­layed bar­gain­ing. The Gov­ern­ment even­tu­al­ly set­tled long-out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with a 10 per cent salary in­crease, but the ac­cu­mu­lat­ed fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions have be­come sub­stan­tial. Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Fi­nance’s Mid-Year Re­view, ap­prox­i­mate­ly $224.8 mil­lion had al­ready been paid in ar­rears across sev­er­al sec­tors.

That set­tle­ment, how­ev­er, should not cre­ate an ex­pec­ta­tion that every em­ploy­er can sim­ply repli­cate the same arrange­ment. Each bar­gain­ing unit must be as­sessed ac­cord­ing to its fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances, op­er­a­tional re­al­i­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

At TSTT, the CWU is press­ing for a mean­ing­ful set­tle­ment af­ter years of ne­go­ti­a­tions. The com­pa­ny’s im­proved fi­nan­cial per­for­mance has strength­ened the union’s ar­gu­ment that work­ers should share in that suc­cess. Equal­ly, the com­pa­ny must pro­vide cred­i­ble fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion to demon­strate what it can sus­tain­ably af­ford.

The sit­u­a­tion at the Port Au­thor­i­ty is even more trou­bling. SWW­TU mem­bers are seek­ing the re­main­ing 80 per cent of out­stand­ing back­pay and over­time, now es­ti­mat­ed at $337 mil­lion, while four col­lec­tive agree­ments dat­ing back to 2014 re­main un­re­solved. Work­ers are re­port­ed­ly still be­ing paid us­ing wage rates es­tab­lished more than a decade ago.

This is not mere­ly an­oth­er wage dis­pute. The na­tion’s ports are crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture. Pro­longed in­dus­tri­al ac­tion could dis­rupt im­ports and ex­ports, af­fect busi­ness­es and con­sumers, and im­pose ad­di­tion­al costs on an econ­o­my that can ill af­ford them.

The Gov­ern­ment must en­sure that in­sti­tu­tions re­spon­si­ble for labour ne­go­ti­a­tions func­tion ef­fi­cient­ly and trans­par­ent­ly. Unions must recog­nise that in­dus­tri­al ac­tion is a le­git­i­mate tool, but not a sub­sti­tute for ne­go­ti­a­tion. Em­ploy­ers must al­so un­der­stand that end­less de­lays can be just as dam­ag­ing as strike ac­tion it­self.

No work­er should have to wait a decade for a ne­go­ti­at­ed ad­just­ment. Nor should em­ploy­ers be per­mit­ted to cite fi­nan­cial un­cer­tain­ty in­def­i­nite­ly with­out ev­i­dence.

In­dus­tri­al peace is built on fair bar­gain­ing, trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and good faith. Work­ers de­serve fair­ness, em­ploy­ers de­serve sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the pub­lic de­serves re­li­able ser­vices free from dis­rup­tion.