RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With the Gov­ern­ment hav­ing ful­filled its promise to pay back­pay to pub­lic ser­vants this week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the re­main­ing out­stand­ing ar­rears will be set­tled in the new year in ac­cor­dance with the law.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) mem­bers be­gan re­ceiv­ing an ini­tial cash pay­ment of their back­pay, af­ter union pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas agreed to the par­tial pay­out in­stead of a full pay­ment.

Speak­ing on the mat­ter dur­ing a toy dis­tri­b­u­tion dri­ve at her con­stituen­cy of­fice in Pe­nal last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Well, I trust all sys­tems were on go. I haven’t spo­ken to any­one to­day; they were sup­posed to re­ceive on or be­fore the 23rd, and to­day is the 19th. We have a few more days to go.

“I saw a mes­sage say­ing peo­ple have been re­ceiv­ing, but I won’t put my head on a block for Ivan to kill me or you and your news. I will get more de­tails from (Dave) Tan­coo, but all sys­tems were on go for that to be paid.”

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo al­so an­nounced yes­ter­day that back­pay had been paid as promised by the Gov­ern­ment.

“Still think the me­dia is un­bi­ased? Salaries and back­pay on time and not a me­dia house beep,” Tan­coo said in a What­sApp sta­tus.

Tan­coo had pre­vi­ous­ly said that the re­main­der of the pay­out to PSA mem­bers will be is­sued through non-cash op­tions next year.

How­ev­er, de­spite the PSA mem­bers re­ceiv­ing their ar­rears, work­ers at­tached to the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties (RHAs) have so far re­ceived noth­ing.

On this, Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sured RHA work­ers that out­stand­ing pay­ments will be ad­dressed in the new year, while stress­ing that any set­tle­ment must be car­ried out in ac­cor­dance with the law.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­knowl­edged the dis­ap­point­ment among RHA em­ploy­ees but said the sit­u­a­tion could not be re­solved overnight.

“I wish I had all the mon­ey in the world in the bank, I would pay every sin­gle one of you,” she said.

“But we don’t have that mon­ey to make every­thing hap­pen be­fore Christ­mas.”

She ex­plained that the sums owed to RHA work­ers re­late to back­pay ac­cu­mu­lat­ed over sev­er­al years and in­volve a dif­fer­ent le­gal and ne­go­ti­at­ing frame­work.

“These monies are not for yes­ter­day and to­day,” she said.

“These monies are back­pays for 10 years.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar point­ed out that de­spite wait­ing for their pay­ments for near­ly a decade, RHA work­ers had not pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

“For ten years they nev­er once quit, nev­er once went out there to hold peo­ple’s lives to ran­som,” she said.

She said she be­lieved that same re­straint would pre­vail now.

“I think they have bet­ter sense than that,” she said. “Good sense will pre­vail.”

Re­spond­ing to re­ports that work­ers were plan­ning to stay off the job dur­ing the hol­i­day pe­ri­od, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned the cred­i­bil­i­ty of those claims.

“Who is say­ing it? Who are these anony­mous, name­less peo­ple?” she asked.

She not­ed that work­ers are en­ti­tled to ex­press their con­cerns with­in the bounds of the law.

“We live in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try,” she said.

“They have a right to ex­press what­ev­er they want to ex­press in a free coun­try in ac­cor­dance with the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

How­ev­er, she stressed that ne­go­ti­a­tions and pay­ments must fol­low es­tab­lished le­gal pro­ce­dures, par­tic­u­lar­ly since RHA work­ers do not fall un­der the PSA bar­gain­ing unit.

“In the new year, the min­is­ter will en­gage them in the process of the law, as we en­gage all those with out­stand­ing pay,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would not com­mit to a spe­cif­ic time­line, not­ing that the process in­volves le­gal and ad­min­is­tra­tive steps that can­not be by­passed.

“I will not give you a date. It is a process that fol­lows the law,” she said.

She added that ex­pec­ta­tions for im­me­di­ate pay­ment were un­re­al­is­tic giv­en the short time since the new ad­min­is­tra­tion took of­fice.

“The day we are in of­fice, some of you want to get every­thing to­mor­row morn­ing,” she said.

She sug­gest­ed this re­flect­ed con­fi­dence in the Gov­ern­ment’s will­ing­ness to act.

“They be­lieve they can get every­thing to­mor­row morn­ing,” she said.

While cau­tion­ing that pay­ments can­not be rushed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fered re­as­sur­ance that dis­cus­sions would move for­ward.

“You can’t get it to­mor­row, but maybe next week or the next month we’ll work on it,” she said.

She re­it­er­at­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to set­tling out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions across the pub­lic ser­vice.

“I give you that as­sur­ance,” she said.

“We will en­gage them ac­cord­ing to the law. That is how we will pro­ceed,” she added.