Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has in­struct­ed the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NIBTT) to ho­n­our its com­mit­ment to the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and pay out­stand­ing monies owed to work­ers from the 2014–2016 ne­go­ti­a­tion pe­ri­od.

It’s a move that will cost the State around $100 mil­lion.

This will ben­e­fit 950 peo­ple, and the NIBTT said the mon­ey will be paid this month. This came in the same week the Gov­ern­ment is­sued 400 ter­mi­na­tion let­ters to work­ers of the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP).

Mak­ing a state­ment in the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “For more than a decade, em­ploy­ees of the NIBTT have been wait­ing in frus­tra­tion and de­pri­va­tion for what was law­ful­ly theirs.”

Ac­cord­ing to PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas, this set­tle­ment aris­es from a col­lec­tive agree­ment that was ne­go­ti­at­ed, reg­is­tered, but not ful­filled.

Thomas said via press re­lease, “De­spite its le­gal stand­ing, the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), un­der the di­rec­tion of then min­is­ter of fi­nance Colm Im­bert, de­lib­er­ate­ly in­ter­fered with the law­ful process and pre­vent­ed the Board from ho­n­our­ing its oblig­a­tions to work­ers.”

At­tempts to con­tact Im­bert yes­ter­day were fu­tile as he has blocked sev­er­al jour­nal­ists from con­tact­ing him via his mo­bile phone.

But soon af­ter the Prime Min­is­ter spoke, the NIBTT said all nec­es­sary ap­provals had been made to fa­cil­i­tate the salary set­tle­ment.

The NIBTT said the break­down of the orig­i­nal agree­ment stat­ed that the ex­ist­ing Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance (CO­LA) of $200 will be con­sol­i­dat­ed on­to the ba­sic salaries of el­i­gi­ble em­ploy­ees as of De­cem­ber 31, 2013.

Salaries should al­so be in­creased by 3 per cent per an­num be­tween 2014 and 2016.

And a re­vised CO­LA of $220 shall al­so be paid to each em­ploy­ee cov­ered by this agree­ment with ef­fect from Jan­u­ary 1, 2014.

Up to late yes­ter­day evening, nei­ther the PSA nor the NIBTT could re­veal the over­all cost to the State.

How­ev­er, the 2024 An­nu­al Re­port of the NIBTT showed that un­der Con­tin­gent Li­a­bil­i­ties and Cap­i­tal Com­mit­ments, “a pro­vi­sion of $186.94 mil­lion has been made in the ac­counts for wage ne­go­ti­a­tions up to June 2024 for bar­gain­ing units A&B staff.”

A source said the ac­tu­al amount to be paid to the work­ers is a lit­tle over $100 mil­lion.

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the fail­ure of the PNM to ho­n­our this pay­ment was a clear case of “po­lit­i­cal ob­struc­tion.”

“They de­nied 600 cur­rent em­ploy­ees and 350 past em­ploy­ees their law­ful en­ti­tle­ments for al­most six years, ef­fec­tive­ly with­hold­ing salary in­creas­es that had been due for over 12 years. They placed po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence above the law, sac­ri­ficed jus­tice on the al­tar of ex­pe­di­en­cy, and in the process robbed thou­sands of cit­i­zens of their right­ful salary ad­just­ments and ar­rears.”

Per­dad-Bisses­sar said it was a grave moral fail­ure of the PNM that neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed the fi­nan­cial se­cu­ri­ty and qual­i­ty of life of the work­ers.

She said this move by her gov­ern­ment showed its com­mit­ment to the Work­ers’ Agen­da and the ful­fill­ment of a cam­paign promise. The Prime Min­is­ter added that this is not an iso­lat­ed mea­sure.

“It is the first step in a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gramme to ad­dress and set­tle out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions across the pub­lic ser­vice and state sec­tor. We made a promise to the peo­ple, and to­day, we prove once again that promis­es made are promis­es kept.”

The PSA pres­i­dent ex­tend­ed “pro­found grat­i­tude” to Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the UNC Gov­ern­ment.

Thomas, who pub­licly sup­port­ed the UNC in the lead up to the gen­er­al elec­tion, even ap­pear­ing on sev­er­al of its po­lit­i­cal plat­forms, re­buked the PNM for its han­dling of the mat­ter.

“The PSA strong­ly con­demns this reck­less abuse of of­fice and the fla­grant dis­re­gard shown by the PNM for the sa­cred process of ne­go­ti­a­tions and the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing frame­work. By choos­ing to tram­ple on a bind­ing agree­ment, the last ad­min­is­tra­tion in­flict­ed un­nec­es­sary and un­jus­ti­fied dis­tress up­on the ded­i­cat­ed em­ploy­ees of the NIB,” she ar­gued.

Mean­while, NIBTT ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Niala Per­sad-Po­li­ah, hailed this as a “favourable con­clu­sion” and thanked the staff for its pa­tience.