Chester Sam­bra­no

The largest union body rep­re­sent­ing pub­lic sec­tor work­ers had its day with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Daryl Din­di­al on Fri­day, but the of­fer on the ta­ble re­mained the same– four per cent 0,0,2 for 2014 to 2016 and 0,0,2 for 2017 to 2019.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the meet­ing that last­ed over five hours pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Leroy Bap­tiste said, “It is a far cry from what we would set­tle for...”It is non­sen­si­cal, it does not ad­dress the con­cerns of the mem­bers.”

He ex­plained that their stan­dards of liv­ing have fall­en due to an in­crease in in­fla­tion of over 40 per cent since 2013.

“Our po­si­tion based on what the mem­bers would have said to us pri­or to com­ing to­day is that such a pro­pos­al is to be to­tal­ly re­ject­ed so we have in fact re­ject­ed that,” he said.

But the re­jec­tion of the of­fer is not the on­ly prob­lem to be ad­dressed by the PSA. Bap­tiste said the ap­proach of the CPO can be likened to that of a bul­ly.

“He does the job of bul­ly­ing the work­ers with pleas­ant tones, so he pass­es on the bul­ly­ing of the Gov­ern­ment but he does it pleas­ant­ly. But bul­ly is bul­ly,” Bap­tised added.

The PSA pres­i­dent al­so took it an­oth­er step fur­ther and ac­cused the CPO of threat­en­ing work­ers.

He claimed Din­di­al told them: “Be care­ful that we re­ject this of­fer and it ends up in the In­dus­tri­al Court where we would get a third par­ty in­ter­ven­tion that would be less favourable than the four per cent.”

He said that is on an as­sump­tion that the court would not grant any in­creas­es.

“So by point­ing to that as a pos­si­bil­i­ty it is in­tend­ed to be a sub­tle threat, I wouldn’t say the word sub­tle it is a threat, it was in­tend­ed to be a threat, a di­rect threat.”

How­ev­er, notwith­stand­ing, Bap­tiste ex­pressed the view that it will be in the in­ter­est of all par­ties in­volved to meet and set­tle the mat­ter.

But un­til then the union plans to draft a writ­ten re­sponse to the CPO and then it will be de­ter­mined if an­oth­er meet­ing will be sought.

As for the way for­ward he would on­ly say that “we will now have to em­bark up­on all that a trade union can do to con­tin­ue ad­vanc­ing a strong po­si­tion on be­half of its mem­bers and that is as much as I can say on that.”

Ear­li­er in the day, TTUTA (Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion) met with the CPO, how­ev­er, lit­tle to no progress was made.

TTUTA To­ba­go of­fi­cer Bradon Roberts told Guardian Me­dia that the pos­si­bil­i­ty of plac­ing a per­cent­age of­fer on the ta­ble was de­clined im­me­di­ate­ly by the as­so­ci­a­tion as it in­sist­ed on us­ing the usu­al mar­ket sur­vey ap­proach to its ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“There has been no change or no move­ment to the ne­go­ti­a­tions. He made the at­tempt to of­fer a per­cent­age but that is not how we ne­go­ti­ate,” Roberts said.

He said the CPO now has to re­for­mat his of­fer to teach­ers, which would be done by next week.