Derek Achong

Prison and fire of­fi­cers plan to take ac­tion to vent their con­tin­ued dis­sat­is­fac­tion over the Gov­ern­ment's four per cent salary in­crease of­fer.

Prison Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Ceron Richards and Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (Sec­ond Di­vi­sion) Pres­i­dent Leo Ramkissoon re­vealed the pro­posed ac­tion, a short while ago, dur­ing a press con­fer­ence, which fol­lowed a joint meet­ing at the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) head­quar­ters at Aber­crom­by Street in Port-of-Spain.

Both Richards and Ramkissoon stat­ed that their mem­bers con­sid­ered the Gov­ern­ment's of­fer, for salary ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween 2014 and 2019, as a salary de­crease based on 22 per cent head­line in­fla­tion dur­ing the ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­od.

"We can­not guar­an­tee what the out­come would be but it does not look good...Prison of­fi­cers have reached their break­ing point," Richards said.

While nei­ther re­vealed what spe­cif­ic ac­tion would be tak­en by their mem­ber­ship, they both de­nied that their an­nounce­ment was an "emp­ty threat" based on le­gal re­stric­tions on in­dus­tri­al ac­tion that can be tak­en by mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

"Things will not be nor­mal in T&T. The Gov­ern­ment is em­bark­ing on a jour­ney to shut down T&T," Richards added.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has re­peat­ed­ly de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment's of­fer, which was put for­ward by the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO).

Dr Row­ley has claimed that the of­fer is all the Gov­ern­ment can af­ford, as if ac­cept­ed, it would cost the State over $2.5 bil­lion in back pay up to June 2022.