Signed. Sealed. De­liv­ered.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment (MoA) for the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods 2014-2016 and 2017-2019, in ac­cep­tance of the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer of four per­cent. 

CPO Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al and TTPSS­WA Pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, signed the Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment at the Of­fice of the CPO, ear­li­er to­day (Feb­ru­ary 17, 2023).

“The agree­ment be­tween the par­ties demon­strates the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to ho­n­our­ing its 4% of­fer,” CPO Dr Din­di­al said in the re­lease. “I am hope­ful oth­er As­so­ci­a­tions would re­con­sid­er their po­si­tion and ac­cept the of­fer.”

An of­fi­cial state­ment from the CPO’s Of­fice re­ports that the TTPSS­WA re­ceived a di­rec­tive from its mem­ber­ship to ac­cept the CPO’s 4% of­fer on salary for both First and Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Po­lice Of­fi­cers.  That oc­curred on No­vem­ber 30, 2022, at a Spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil Meet­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­lease:

“The As­so­ci­a­tion had pro­posed a num­ber of items, some trans­for­ma­tion­al, to as­sist the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) strength­en its ca­pac­i­ty to de­liv­er on its man­date to all stake­hold­ers. Is­sues rang­ing from a Job Eval­u­a­tion Ex­er­cise to the recog­ni­tion of Com­mu­ni­ty Polic­ing in the form of Youth Clubs to com­bat white col­lar crime were on the agen­da.”

“Apart from the 4% salary in­crease, there were ad­just­ments to al­lowances such as uni­form, meal, laun­dry, spe­cial­i­sa­tion, trav­el­ling, cost of liv­ing al­lowance (CO­LA), as well as the con­duct of a Job Eval­u­a­tion Ex­er­cise that is ex­pect­ed to com­mence in Jan­u­ary 2024,” the CPO’s re­lease notes.

“The TTPS will al­so re­ceive a lump-sum pay­ment of $4,000 to Of­fi­cers who re­tired com­pul­so­ri­ly, vol­un­tar­i­ly and with per­mis­sion on the grounds of ill­ness for the pe­ri­od 2014-2015,” it added.

The CPO’s Of­fice stat­ed that back in No­vem­ber 2022, the TTPSS­WA had signed off on a Griev­ance Pro­ce­dure for its mem­bers. The pro­ce­dure is ex­pect­ed to be im­ple­ment­ed by the end of the first quar­ter, in 2023.