Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath is stand­ing by his po­si­tion that there is no 10 per cent wage of­fer on the ta­ble for TSTT work­ers, di­rect­ly re­ject­ing claims made by Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer.

Padarath was re­spond­ing yes­ter­day to Ogeer’s call for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to TSTT vice-pres­i­dent of Cor­po­rate Ser­vices Roshan Bab­wah, as the wage dis­pute be­tween the union and the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues.

Ogeer has main­tained that the union and TSTT en­gaged in dis­cus­sions on a 10 per cent in­crease and that cal­cu­la­tions were done joint­ly to de­ter­mine the cost of the pro­pos­al. She has al­so ar­gued the dis­cus­sions cre­at­ed an un­der­stand­ing that an agree­ment had been reached.

How­ev­er, Padarath said both TSTT man­age­ment and the com­pa­ny’s board have re­ject­ed that ac­count.

“I have no in­ten­tion of danc­ing to the tune of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union’s pres­i­dent,” Padarath said yes­ter­day.

He said he had spo­ken with TSTT man­age­ment, in­clud­ing Bab­wah, as well as the board, and they re­it­er­at­ed that no 10 per cent of­fer had ever been made.

“They have re­fut­ed the claims of Ms Ogeer and there­fore I stand by my orig­i­nal state­ments that there is no 10% on the ta­ble,” Padarath said.

Padarath said the way for­ward will now in­volve TSTT’s in­com­ing act­ing CEO Reza Ho­sein, who will have to ad­dress in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions at the com­pa­ny.

“I did in­di­cate pub­licly that one of the very first things that the new in­com­ing CEO will have to take a look at is the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is­sue at the com­pa­ny,” Padarath said.

He added that the mat­ter will be dis­cussed with the TSTT board, which will pro­vide an up­date to the coun­try and, im­por­tant­ly, the CWU.

Union wants probe of VP

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day morn­ing, the CWU called for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Bab­wah amid the on­go­ing dis­pute over a pro­posed 10 per cent wage in­crease for work­ers.

Ogeer al­so crit­i­cised Padarath over his han­dling of the dis­pute.

“You all asked the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union to give you all three months. Give us three months. Your words were, ‘Please take down the heat.’ You know what we said? We will take down the heat. What you want the three months for? To get the books in or­der. We said, ‘All right,’ but re­mem­ber we have ne­go­ti­a­tions. You, Roshan Bab­wah and Keino Cox, said no prob­lem,” Ogeer said.

At the heart of the dis­agree­ment is whether the union and TSTT reached an agree­ment on the pro­posed 10 per cent in­crease. Padarath has main­tained he was ad­vised no agree­ment had been reached and that ne­go­ti­a­tions would re­sume in Sep­tem­ber.

Ogeer, how­ev­er, strong­ly dis­put­ed that po­si­tion. She said the union is seek­ing a 10 per cent in­crease over two three-year bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods, cov­er­ing a to­tal of six years, and ar­gued that the pro­pos­al was rea­son­able giv­en the ero­sion of work­ers’ pur­chas­ing pow­er. Ogeer said the union had al­so sought to con­sol­i­date cost-of-liv­ing al­lowance (CO­LA) in­to the set­tle­ment.

She re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that TSTT work­ers were be­ing un­rea­son­able or greedy and ex­pressed con­cern about the state of the com­pa­ny.

“I did tell you all heads will roll, you know. Heads will roll. Yes­ter­day, one roll. They roll be­fore time. But I just say­ing, TSTT, look in­to TSTT. It is the most cor­rupt since April 2025. It is the most cor­rupt,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Ogeer, cal­cu­la­tions con­duct­ed joint­ly by the union and com­pa­ny showed that a 10 per cent in­crease with CO­LA con­sol­i­da­tion in one pay­ment would cost TSTT ap­prox­i­mate­ly $56 mil­lion, with an ad­di­tion­al $9.6 mil­lion in back­pay. She said an­oth­er op­tion dis­cussed, al­so in­volv­ing a 10 per cent in­crease, was es­ti­mat­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly $59 mil­lion.

Ogeer said those fig­ures came from dis­cus­sions be­tween the union and the com­pa­ny and ques­tioned why Padarath ap­peared un­aware of them.

“Some­body not ad­vis­ing you,” she said, di­rect­ing the ques­tion to the min­is­ter.

Ogeer al­so dis­put­ed any sug­ges­tion that the par­ties had not met since agree­ing to re­sume dis­cus­sions. She said the union and TSTT met twice, in­clud­ing once vir­tu­al­ly, with the lat­est meet­ing tak­ing place around Ju­ly 9.

Ogeer then turned her at­ten­tion di­rect­ly to Bab­wah, chal­leng­ing him to pub­licly dis­pute the union’s ac­count of the dis­cus­sions.

She called on Padarath to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Bab­wah, par­tic­u­lar­ly over what she de­scribed as po­ten­tial­ly “mis­lead­ing ut­ter­ances” to the union that could have cre­at­ed a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that an agree­ment had been reached.

She al­so raised a se­ries of oth­er con­cerns about TSTT’s man­age­ment, in­clud­ing pro­mo­tions, ap­point­ments and the re­cruit­ment of a new cor­po­rate sec­re­tary.