DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer trade union­ist and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Clyde El­der, says the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion’s (PSA) ten per cent wage set­tle­ment for 2014 to 2019 is un­like­ly to set a prece­dent for oth­er labour groups.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment, El­der ar­gued that unions which ac­cept­ed the gov­ern­ment’s four per cent wage of­fer un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will now face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in re­open­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions. Rough­ly sev­en groups signed on to that arrange­ment, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion, Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers Union, De­fence Force, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, and the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union.

El­der said the gov­ern­ment has ful­filled its com­mit­ment to the PSA, a union he de­scribed as hav­ing strong­ly backed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and hav­ing been “vic­timised” by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion. He ac­knowl­edged that the set­tle­ment could have wider im­pli­ca­tions, but stressed that unions bound by the four per cent agree­ment had al­ready com­mit­ted their mem­bers to those terms.

“If I am to ad­vise the gov­ern­ment on that—an agree­ment made and signed is what it is. If those unions did not be­lieve that their mem­ber­ship de­served more than four per cent and they signed for four per cent, then you can­not now come and say, ‘Well, if the PSA get ten per cent, I want ten per cent too,’” El­der said.

“The PSA put up that fight. They put up that strug­gle. They fought with the par­ty—the UNC—and to­day, be­cause of that fight, they are see­ing the re­wards. So, you can’t say, ‘Be­cause I didn’t fight, but PSA fought, I want to now get the ben­e­fit of what PSA fought for.’ That’s not fair.”

El­der main­tained that the gov­ern­ment does not in­ter­fere in col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, say­ing the set­tle­ment struc­ture was left en­tire­ly to the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer and the PSA. Ques­tions re­gard­ing fund­ing, he said, fall square­ly on the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

How­ev­er, for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert warned the set­tle­ment could trig­ger broad­er de­mands. While the PSA agree­ment cov­ers rough­ly 15,000 work­ers, the broad­er pub­lic sec­tor con­sists of be­tween 75,000 and 100,000 em­ploy­ees—a scale that could place se­vere pres­sure on state fi­nances.

“I would not want to com­ment un­til I look at the num­bers care­ful­ly. But at the end of the day, if all pub­lic sec­tor unions get the same arrange­ment, back pay could reach maybe $20 bil­lion, with an an­nu­al ad­di­tion­al wage ex­pen­di­ture of about $2 bil­lion,” Im­bert said.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is al­so call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to clar­i­fy how it in­tends to cov­er both the back pay and new re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture, es­ti­mat­ed at $3.8 bil­lion in back pay and $420 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly. He not­ed the set­tle­ment was not re­flect­ed in the na­tion­al bud­get, which al­ready pro­ject­ed a $3.8 bil­lion deficit.

“If they have to get the mon­ey, then it means the deficit could rise to sev­en, maybe clos­er to eight bil­lion dol­lars, or even over eight bil­lion dol­lars. We await to hear how the gov­ern­ment will pay the pub­lic ser­vants. But we al­so note that we are hap­py there is fi­nal­ly a set­tle­ment on these im­por­tant is­sues be­cause they have been pend­ing for too long,” Gon­za­les said.

Re­spond­ing to claims that the PNM had pre­vi­ous­ly ben­e­fit­ed from salary in­creas­es while work­ers wait­ed for set­tle­ments, Gon­za­les said the com­par­i­son was mis­placed. He in­sist­ed the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) op­er­ates in­de­pen­dent­ly and that sev­er­al unions had al­ready set­tled un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion while the PSA case was still in the le­gal process.

“Let me say the SRC is an in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion that de­lib­er­at­ed on this mat­ter. The re­port was laid in Par­lia­ment and ac­cept­ed by Par­lia­ment. There­fore, I don’t see how you can equate the two sit­u­a­tions,” Gon­za­les said.

“To claim that the gov­ern­ment did not set­tle with some parts of the work­ing class is not en­tire­ly true. It was fol­low­ing the nor­mal process and, from my rec­ol­lec­tion, was al­ways com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing set­tle­ments with all out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with unions.”

The PNM had pre­vi­ous­ly warned that a ten per cent wage in­crease for trade unions could bank­rupt the coun­try.