Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The T&T Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) wants Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to ur­gent­ly in­ter­vene in their on­go­ing salary dis­pute with Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL).

At a press con­fer­ence held yes­ter­day at the Nor­mandie Ho­tel, St Ann’s, mem­bers of the union ex­pressed frus­tra­tion at the air­line’s fail­ure to pay the salary in­creas­es ap­proved by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert.

In­dus­tri­al re­la­tions con­sul­tant for TTAL­PA Tim­o­thy Bai­ley called for Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley to in­ter­vene, giv­en the crit­i­cal role pi­lots play in con­nec­tiv­i­ty and the econ­o­my.

Not­ing that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has al­ready al­lo­cat­ed the nec­es­sary funds, Bai­ley said: “We are say­ing to the board and man­age­ment of Caribbean Air­lines, while you want to par­ty, our pi­lots want their mon­ey.

“Sign off on the col­lec­tive agree­ment, pay the pi­lots what they are owed, and fo­cus on the air­line’s core mis­sion.”

He said the CAL board’s in­ac­tion ne­ces­si­tates high­er-lev­el in­ter­ven­tion to en­sure the air­line’s oblig­a­tions to its pi­lots are met prompt­ly.

“The com­pa­ny has failed to meet with the union, to counter-pro­pose and as a re­sult, we were left with no choice but to re­fer the mat­ter to the Min­is­ter of Labour for con­cil­i­a­tion,” he said.

Bai­ley re­vealed that dur­ing con­cil­i­a­tion pro­ceed­ings ear­li­er this week, CAL rep­re­sen­ta­tives failed to present a coun­ter­pro­pos­al or ful­ly en­gage in dis­cus­sions.

Of­fi­cials of the union said Min­is­ter Im­bert ap­proved a four per cent salary in­crease for pi­lots for the pe­ri­od 2015–2020, fol­lowed by an­oth­er four per cent in­crease for 2020–2023. Al­though a col­lec­tive agree­ment was signed on De­cem­ber 11, the air­line has not yet im­ple­ment­ed the full pay­ments owed to pi­lots, he said.

Bai­ley said on­ly a por­tion of the salaries have been paid and the com­pa­ny has failed to en­gage in mean­ing­ful ne­go­ti­a­tions to ad­dress the out­stand­ing amounts.

TTAL­PA al­so took is­sue with CAL’s con­tin­ued fo­cus on en­ter­tain­ment events, while its pi­lots re­main un­paid. Bai­ley not­ed while CAL has been host­ing mar­ket­ing events and par­ties, it has ne­glect­ed its core du­ty as an air­line and em­ploy­er.

“This pro­longed ne­go­ti­a­tion process, span­ning near­ly a decade, has tak­en a toll on the pi­lot body,” he said.

“Avi­a­tion is a high­ly reg­u­lat­ed in­dus­try, sec­ond on­ly to war­fare in terms of op­er­a­tional stan­dards. Our pi­lots must re­main ful­ly fo­cused, with­out un­nec­es­sary dis­trac­tions caused by fi­nan­cial un­cer­tain­ty.”

TTAL­PA as­sured that de­spite their griev­ances, the pi­lots will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate safe­ly dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son. How­ev­er, he stressed that ur­gent ac­tion is need­ed to re­solve the is­sue be­fore it fur­ther im­pacts the air­line’s op­er­a­tions and pi­lot morale.

Bai­ley ex­plained that as es­sen­tial work­ers, pi­lots are lim­it­ed in their abil­i­ty to en­gage in tra­di­tion­al in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, mak­ing pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns a vi­tal tool in their ad­vo­ca­cy.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, CAL head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Dionne Ligoure, said the ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the air­line and union are on­go­ing and the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to op­er­ate in good faith.