The on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion (TTAL­PA) and Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL) hit yet an­oth­er stum­bling block when CAL, to the union’s sur­prise, re­sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al that it had pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed.

Yes­ter­day, the na­tion­al air­line re­vealed in a state­ment that it had sought the Min­istry of Labour’s in­ter­ven­tion as ne­go­ti­a­tions from Sep­tem­ber 1, 2015, to Au­gust 31, 2018, broke down. The com­pa­ny not­ed that the de­ci­sion was tak­en on­ly af­ter “care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion” and the chal­lenges faced in reach­ing “a mu­tu­al­ly agree­able res­o­lu­tion”.

At the ne­go­ti­a­tions meet­ing last Wednes­day, CAL con­veyed that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance had rec­om­mend­ed a re­turn to the bar­gain­ing ta­ble. Fur­ther­more, the Min­is­ter in­struct­ed that if an agree­ment could not be reached, the ne­go­ti­a­tions should be re­ferred to the Min­istry of Labour.

How­ev­er, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, the pi­lot body said it had “very lit­tle faith” in the Min­istry of Labour’s in­ter­ven­tion giv­en line min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie’s re­sponse to the union’s ten per cent of­fer in Au­gust which he de­scribed as “un­re­al­is­tic”. At the time, he told Guardian Me­dia that the union must con­sid­er the com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to pay. TTAL­PA said this was a trou­bling sign of bias by the min­is­ter.

The re­sub­mit­ted pro­pos­al from CAL, dat­ed Au­gust 15, ac­cord­ing to TTAL­PA out­lined changes, in­clud­ing the clas­si­fi­ca­tion of pi­lots as hourly-rat­ed work­ers, a re­duc­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 per cent in pi­lot salaries on the 737 fleet due to slashed min­i­mum guar­an­teed hours, the re­moval of the right for Trinidad and To­ba­go Pi­lots to work un­til age 65, and de­nial of back­pay for pi­lots.

TTAL­PA again ex­pressed its dis­agree­ment with CAL’s pro­pos­al, em­pha­sis­ing that the com­pa­ny had not re­spond­ed to its coun­ter­pro­pos­al sub­mit­ted on Au­gust 18. The as­so­ci­a­tion ac­cused CAL of ne­go­ti­at­ing in bad faith and stat­ed that CAL’s po­si­tion seemed to be one of “take it or leave it.”

The de­vel­op­ment adds ten­sion to the al­ready strained re­la­tion­ship be­tween TTAL­PA and CAL, with pi­lots ex­press­ing frus­tra­tion over a lack of progress since the sub­mis­sion of ne­go­ti­a­tion pro­pos­als in Oc­to­ber 2019. TTAL­PA said it had re­peat­ed­ly urged CEO Garvin Med­era and CAL to ne­go­ti­ate in good faith over the past four years.

The break­down of the ne­go­ti­a­tions first came to light on Au­gust 20 when over 80 flights had to be can­celled be­cause 73 pi­lots had called in sick that week­end. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,368 pas­sen­gers had been af­fect­ed by the can­cel­la­tions, cost­ing CAL an ap­prox­i­mate $15 mil­lion.

TTAL­PA said the com­pa­ny now seems “very anx­ious” to se­cure an ex­ten­sion of time to file a break­down of the ne­go­ti­a­tions at the min­istry while CAL, in its me­dia re­lease on Tues­day, said it is hope­ful that the in­ter­ven­tion of Min­is­ter Mc Clashie will lead to an ear­ly res­o­lu­tion. Calls to Min­is­ter Mc Clashie’s phone went unan­swered.

De­spite both par­ties not be­ing able to reach an agree­ment on the new terms and con­di­tions for the pi­lots, they have both ex­pressed will­ing­ness to con­tin­ue di­a­logue with each oth­er.