DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pri­ori­tise and set­tle out­stand­ing wage dis­putes with trade unions, warn­ing that pro­longed ne­go­ti­a­tions and in­dus­tri­al un­rest could car­ry eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal risks.

The is­sue comes as the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) con­tin­ues to press for out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions to be ad­dressed, while the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has paused its protest ac­tion af­ter se­cur­ing a com­mit­ment from Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath that Gov­ern­ment will ho­n­our its 10 per cent wage set­tle­ment promise.

The CWU is seek­ing to bring wages up to date for two out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­ods - 2020 to 2022 and 2023 to 2025.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist and pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT) at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, yes­ter­day said the Gov­ern­ment has com­pet­ing fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions and can­not nec­es­sar­i­ly make trade union set­tle­ments its first pri­or­i­ty.

“The trade union set­tle­ment wouldn’t be first on the agen­da, it can­not be first on the agen­da at this point in time. Even if they protest­ed, it wouldn’t be first on the agen­da be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has cer­tain pri­or­i­ty oblig­a­tions, eco­nom­ic, fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions to ful­fil. And so, in the in­ter­im, though, while they’re work­ing that out, the pri­or­i­ties, they need to ne­go­ti­ate. So, they need to meet with the union.”

Ram­per­sad warned that pro­longed dis­putes and con­tin­ued protests could cre­ate in­sta­bil­i­ty and af­fect in­vestor con­fi­dence, but ar­gued that unions must be re­al­is­tic in their de­mands.

How­ev­er, she sug­gest­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions be pri­ori­tised to the ben­e­fit the labour move­ment and the State.

“They need to get back on the draw­ing ta­ble and con­tin­ue the ne­go­ti­a­tion and let some lev­el of rea­son­able­ness and un­der­stand­ing per­me­ate the dis­course be­cause that is very, very im­por­tant. While you can take ac­tion, you know, even protest ac­tion has a shelf life. But the Gov­ern­ment has a role as well to en­sure that the work­ers are prop­er­ly re­mu­ner­at­ed.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said he un­der­stands why unions are push­ing to con­clude ne­go­ti­a­tions ahead of the up­com­ing bud­get.

Dur­ing his mid-year bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said agree­ments set­tled be­fore the up­com­ing bud­get would be fund­ed through it.

Ra­goonath said there are risks for the Gov­ern­ment if ne­go­ti­a­tions drag on, in­clud­ing pos­si­ble strike ac­tion, al­though he does not be­lieve the is­sue presents an im­me­di­ate po­lit­i­cal threat.

“Is it that the work­ers are go­ing to take strike ac­tion? Those are al­ways risks that we have to look at. If you ask­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly as to whether it is a risk, I am not sure po­lit­i­cal­ly it is a risk for the Gov­ern­ment, be­cause like I keep telling peo­ple, we are on­ly in­to the sec­ond year of this term. There’s a five-year term, and the Gov­ern­ment has time to do a lot of things be­tween now and when­ev­er the elec­tion is held.”

The PSA had start­ed protest­ing over out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions last Thurs­day be­fore paus­ing its ac­tion fol­low­ing its meet­ing with Padarath yes­ter­day.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said the min­is­ter com­mit­ted to mov­ing for­ward with pro­pos­als for a 10 per cent wage in­crease af­fect­ing about 2,800 month­ly-paid WASA work­ers. The out­stand­ing pro­pos­als are ex­pect­ed to be sub­mit­ted to the min­istry by the end of the week.

Thomas has warned, how­ev­er, that the union could re­sume in­dus­tri­al ac­tion if the com­mit­ment is not ho­n­oured.

The PSA and CWU have both raised con­cerns over the sta­tus of their col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, with the unions warn­ing that they have reached a tip­ping point and could take fur­ther le­gal protest ac­tion.