Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s un­apolo­getic ac­cep­tance of the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) for pay in­creas­es, which will come with sub­stan­tial back pay, for politi­cians and some pub­lic of­fi­cers adds more fu­el to the fiery de­bate that has been rag­ing for sev­er­al days.

His de­c­la­ra­tion at Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing that he is pre­pared to “bear that cross with­out fear of ret­ri­bu­tion” is sure to fea­ture in po­lit­i­cal dis­cus­sions for some time to come.

While the rec­om­men­da­tions in the 120th SRC re­port will ap­ply to sev­er­al cat­e­gories of pub­lic of­fi­cials and not just elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, most of the fo­cus will be on the fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits for the Prime Min­is­ter, whose month­ly salary will jump from $59,680 to $87,847. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has been very vo­cal in her re­jec­tion of the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions, will see her month­ly salary in­crease from $29,590 to $47,500.

Then there is the cost to tax­pay­ers. Guardian Me­dia’s in­ves­tiga­tive team, in an ex­clu­sive Sun­day Guardian re­port, es­ti­mat­ed the back pay at more than $150 mil­lion. Of­fices clas­si­fied as ‘politi­cians’ of­fices, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, Op­po­si­tion Leader and MPs, would re­ceive ap­prox­i­mate­ly $43.2 mil­lion of that amount.

Dr Row­ley has al­ready ruled out par­lia­men­tary de­bate on the is­sue while staunch­ly de­fend­ing his po­si­tion, un­pop­u­lar as it is, with the fol­low­ing state­ment: “We be­lieve that we bring val­ue by work­ing hard, by work­ing hon­est­ly for the peo­ple of the coun­try, and the ben­e­fits are there to be seen by those who want to see ben­e­fits.”

Those words are un­like­ly to si­lence the out­rage, par­tic­u­lar­ly from trade unions, the var­i­ous op­po­si­tion groups, and or­di­nary Trin­bag­o­ni­ans who con­tin­ue to have their say on this con­tentious is­sue. Whether there will be any at­tempt at dam­age con­trol and to tamp down this po­lit­i­cal firestorm re­mains to be seen.

How­ev­er, there are some im­por­tant re­lat­ed is­sues to con­sid­er, and it would be in­ter­est­ing to see whether the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion will now pay more at­ten­tion to the strug­gles of the coun­try’s mid­dle- and low-in­come cit­i­zens. They are hurt­ing the most in the cur­rent un­healthy and frac­tious in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate by the in­abil­i­ty to set­tle dis­putes prompt­ly. They are al­so caught in the mid­dle of self-serv­ing po­lit­i­cal agen­das that make it dif­fi­cult to have mean­ing­ful di­a­logue on the bread-and-but­ter is­sues that af­fect them di­rect­ly.

In the cur­rent chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, many of these cit­i­zens find them­selves stuck on fixed in­comes be­cause they have not re­ceived ma­jor in­creas­es in salaries for some time. The cost of food, fu­el, med­ical care and hous­ing is ris­ing, but their pur­chas­ing pow­er is steadi­ly de­clin­ing.

Now that Dr Row­ley has bro­ken his si­lence on the SRC is­sue, will he now have some­thing to say about the strained cir­cum­stances of a sub­stan­tial num­ber of cit­i­zens? Will there be an at­tempt at mean­ing­ful col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly for long-over­due col­lec­tive agree­ments?

It sends the wrong sig­nals to the pop­u­la­tion if the same ad­min­is­tra­tion that has ac­cept­ed the 120th SRC re­port does not change its po­si­tion on in­creas­es for work­ers whose wages have been frozen for years.