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Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Should CAL pilots get more money?

by

636 days ago
20230831

I would like to start this com­men­tary on the is­sue of whether the pi­lots of ma­jor­i­ty state-owned Caribbean Air­lines Ltd (CAL) should re­ceive high­er salaries by stat­ing that, as far as I am con­cerned, the fact that 93 pi­lots called in sick from Au­gust 18 to Au­gust 20, con­sti­tutes in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

In the de­f­i­n­i­tion sec­tion of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA), in­dus­tri­al ac­tion is de­fined as:

“Strikes and lock­outs, and any ac­tion, in­clud­ing sym­pa­thy strikes and sec­ondary boy­cotts (whether or not done in con­tem­pla­tion of, or in fur­ther­ance of, a trade dis­pute), by an em­ploy­er or a trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion or by any num­ber of work­ers or oth­er per­sons to com­pel any work­er, trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion, em­ploy­er or any oth­er per­son, as the case may be, to agree to terms of em­ploy­ment, or to com­ply with any de­mands made by the em­ploy­er or the trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion or by those work­ers or oth­er per­sons, and in­cludes ac­tion com­mon­ly known as a ‘sit-down strike,’ a ‘go-slow’ or a ‘sick-out’....”

In­dus­tri­al ac­tion, there­fore, in­cludes any ac­tion de­signed to com­pel any em­ploy­er “to agree to terms of em­ploy­ment, or to com­ply with any de­mands” made by a trade union or by work­ers or oth­er per­sons “and in­cludes ac­tion com­mon­ly known as a ‘sit-down strike,’ a ‘go-slow’ or a ‘sick-out’.

The IRA, in its sec­ond sched­ule, al­so makes clear that pi­lots pro­vide an es­sen­tial ser­vice, as they are part of what the leg­is­la­tion de­fines as civ­il avi­a­tion ser­vices. That in­cludes, ac­cord­ing to the sec­ond sched­ule:

“All ser­vices pro­vid­ed by a com­mer­cial air­line the ma­jor­i­ty of the air­craft of which are reg­is­tered in T&T or are owned by cit­i­zens of T&T or by a com­pa­ny in­cor­po­rat­ed in T&T, air­craft main­te­nance, re­fu­elling and ramp ser­vices, air traf­fic con­trol and me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal ser­vices and air­line cater­ing ser­vices.”

Sec­tion 67 of the IRA clear­ly states that in­dus­tri­al ac­tion in es­sen­tial ser­vices pro­hib­it­ed.

Sec­tion 67 (2) of the IRA states: “An em­ploy­er or a work­er car­ry­ing on or en­gaged in an es­sen­tial ser­vice shall not take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion in con­nec­tion with any such es­sen­tial ser­vice.”

And 67 (4) states: “A work­er who con­tra­venes sub­sec­tion (2) is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of $1,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for six months.”

67 (5): “A trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion, the hold­er of an of­fice in a trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion or any oth­er per­son who calls for, or caus­es in­dus­tri­al ac­tion to be tak­en in, an es­sen­tial ser­vice or in­duces or per­suades any work­er in that ser­vice to take such ac­tion is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion—

(a) in the case of a trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion to a fine of $20, and the Board may can­cel the cer­tifi­cate of recog­ni­tion un­der Part III;

(b) in the case of the hold­er of an of­fice in a trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion to a fine of $10,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for 12 months, and such per­son shall be dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing of­fice in any trade union or oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tion for a pe­ri­od of five years af­ter con­vic­tion there­for.”

What is more is that sec­tion 63 1 (c) states: “...where a work­er takes part in such ac­tion the em­ploy­er may treat the ac­tion as a fun­da­men­tal breach of con­tract go­ing to the root of the con­tract of em­ploy­ment of the work­er.” In oth­er words, the work­er can be dis­missed forth­with.

So, it seems to me that a lay­man’s read­ing of the IRA would in­di­cate that many of the 93 pi­lots–who were ei­ther sched­uled to fly or on re­serve to fly–that called in sick two week­ends ago en­gaged in il­le­gal in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

That ac­tion was aimed at com­pelling CAL to com­ply with their de­mands for high­er com­pen­sa­tion or to stave off at­tempts by the air­line to change their work prac­tices.

And, be­cause the ac­tion was il­le­gal, the pi­lots who called in sick have left them­selves open to pros­e­cu­tion for breach­es of the IRA and dis­missal.

Al­ready re­ceiv­ing high­er salaries

At a news con­fer­ence last Fri­day, CEO of CAL, Garvin Med­era, dis­closed that the air­line’s pi­lots had re­ceived salary in­creas­es of up to three per cent for the pe­ri­od 2017 to 2022.

In the last Sun­day Guardian, it was re­vealed that the month­ly salary of a new 737 first of­fi­cer, who joined CAL in 2016, would have been $32,529.59 in 2022, which is 16.03 per cent more than the $28,034.50 the ju­nior pi­lot would have re­ceived in 2017.

A first of­fi­cer with eight years ex­pe­ri­ence fly­ing on the 737, would have re­ceived a month­ly salary of $46,251.21 in 2022, which was 16.03 per cent more than the $39,860 re­ceived in 2017. The ex­pe­ri­enced 737 first of­fi­cer would have re­ceived $6,391.21 more in 2022 than in 2017.

A 737 cap­tain with eight years ex­pe­ri­ence would have seen his salary in­crease from $70,165 in 2017 to $81,470.41. That is al­so a 16.11 per cent in­crease for the cap­tain, who would have re­ceived $11,305.41 more in 2022 than in 2017.

The point here is that CAL pi­lots have al­ready re­ceived wage in­creas­es for the pe­ri­od 2017 to 2022.

Mean­while, teach­ers have re­ceived no salary in­creas­es since 2014 and doc­tors in the pub­lic ser­vice have re­ceived no salary in­creas­es since 2015.

Are the pi­lots mak­ing the ar­gu­ment that their needs are greater than the needs of teach­ers or doc­tors?

Or that pi­lots de­serve a 10 per cent wage in­crease in 2023 on top of their 16 per cent wage in­creas­es be­tween 2017 and 2023 be­cause their con­tri­bu­tion to the econ­o­my is greater than teach­ers or doc­tors in the pub­lic ser­vice?

An in­ex­haus­tive check of com­pen­sa­tion in the pub­lic and state sec­tors in­di­cates that apart from pi­lots on­ly two oth­er groups of work­ers re­ceived salary in­creas­es be­tween 2017 and 2022.

They are Petrotrin work­ers, who re­ceived a five per cent “in­ter­im” wage hike in 2017 and the work­ers of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), who re­ceived an in­crease of up to 3 per cent in 2017, based on the com­pa­ny’s per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem.

Apart from those work­ers in the en­er­gy sec­tor, CAL pi­lots are the on­ly work­ers in the en­tire pub­lic and state en­ter­prise sec­tor who re­ceived high­er salaries, ac­cord­ing to my in­ex­haus­tive re­search.

In fact, CAL pi­lots are the on­ly em­ploy­ees in the pub­lic sec­tor who were en­ti­tled to re­ceive an in­crease for every year be­tween 2017 and 2022.

Salary match­ing?

The oth­er im­por­tant point that needs to be made is that if the Gov­ern­ment gives in­to the pres­sure brought to bear by the CAL pi­lots and agrees to pay them a 10 per cent salary in­crease, which the pi­lots are de­mand­ing, or even a 7.5 per cent in­crease, which the air­line is cur­rent­ly of­fer­ing, where does that leave the four per cent wage of­fer to the rest of the pub­lic and state en­ter­prise sec­tor work­ers?

In oth­er words, if the Min­iste of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, agrees with CAL to pay pi­lots a 7.5 per cent in­crease, he will be forced to agree to pay ALL pub­lic sec­tor and state en­ter­prise work­ers 7.5 per cent more a month.

What would be the re­cur­rent cost (and the back­pay cost) of pay­ing all pub­lic sec­tor and state en­ter­prise work­ers 7.5 per cent more? Mr Im­bert needs to in­form this coun­try.

And then if the Gov­ern­ment caves in to the salary de­mands of pi­lots, would it be per­ceived as ac­qui­esc­ing to the de­mands of a group of work­ers, who have al­ready re­ceived salary in­creas­es and some of whom may have bro­ken the law?


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