JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

10 percent a starting point, not a done deal—Charran

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
12 days ago
20250507
This composite image shows the ministers in the new UNC administration who are members of the trade union movement. From left to right: Ernesto Kesar MP, Minister in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries; Clyde Elder MP, Minister in the Ministry of Public Utilities; and Senator Leroy Baptiste, Minister of Labour and Small and Micro-Enterprise Development. [Images courtesy Trinidad and Tobago Government Communications via Facebook]

This composite image shows the ministers in the new UNC administration who are members of the trade union movement. From left to right: Ernesto Kesar MP, Minister in the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries; Clyde Elder MP, Minister in the Ministry of Public Utilities; and Senator Leroy Baptiste, Minister of Labour and Small and Micro-Enterprise Development. [Images courtesy Trinidad and Tobago Government Communications via Facebook]

Trinidad and Tobago Government Communications

Chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC), Vivek Char­ran, says he ex­pects ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Gov­ern­ment and pub­lic sec­tor work­ers will be guid­ed by the fact that a pro­posed 10 per­cent hike is not set in stone.

Speak­ing on to­day’s edi­tion of CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew show, Char­ran ob­served that the UNC's cam­paign promis­es to be­gin ne­go­ti­a­tions for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers at 10 per­cent is not a guar­an­tee of 10 per­cent or more be­ing giv­en to those work­ers.

He says it is an agree­ment to work to­wards a bet­ter ne­go­ti­at­ing point.

“The idea that you’ve just come in­to gov­ern­ment and what­ev­er is in the cof­fers has to be giv­en im­me­di­ate­ly to the unions … I don’t see in re­al­i­ty how that hap­pens,” Char­ran points out, “and I think the unions are a bit more so­phis­ti­cat­ed than that.”

The CR­BC chair­man says now that the trade union move­ment is ac­tive­ly en­gaged in both gov­ern­ment and busi­ness, this should be re­flect­ed in the day-to-day run­ning of pub­lic sec­tor en­ti­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to Char­ran, there has been a dis­con­nect be­tween gov­ern­ment and busi­ness­es. He is hop­ing the in­clu­sion of mem­bers of the trade union move­ment in the Gov­ern­ment will au­gur well for busi­ness­es, es­pe­cial­ly for those in the pub­lic sec­tor.

He says unions have sent a clear sig­nal that they un­der­stand they, too, have a vest­ed in­ter­est in the econ­o­my do­ing well.

“I think we all hope that this works out well for us,” Char­ran said. “That re­la­tion­ship we have with the unions, and the re­la­tion­ship the unions have with re­gard to pro­duc­tiv­i­ty … The in­flu­ence that unions have with re­gard to ef­fi­cien­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly in places like the ports.”

“Giv­en that they are now stake­hold­ers in the Gov­ern­ment them­selves—the unions ac­tu­al­ly have rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go in a re­al sense,” he points out, “[the hope is] it leads to good things.”

The CR­BC chair­man is ad­vis­ing the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to pay par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to food se­cu­ri­ty and the agri­cul­ture in­dus­try.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored