The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has re­it­er­at­ed its re­jec­tion of the State’s pro­pos­al for a 40 per cent cash and 60 per cent non-cash set­tle­ment of out­stand­ing pub­lic sec­tor ar­rears, while out­lin­ing why it be­lieves work­ers should re­ceive their pay­ments in cash.

In a pub­lic post is­sued on Face­book yes­ter­day, PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas de­clared, “PSA says NO!” to the pro­pos­al and de­fend­ed the union’s po­si­tion that “wages are earned in cash. They must be paid in cash.”

The ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volve salary pe­ri­ods cov­er­ing 2014-2016 and 2017-2019 and re­main a ma­jor point of con­tention be­tween the union and the State.

Ac­cord­ing to Thomas, the State’s orig­i­nal pro­pos­al, pre­sent­ed on Jan­u­ary 30, in­clud­ed 40 per cent cash pay­ments spread over three fis­cal pe­ri­ods and 60 per cent non-cash ben­e­fits.

Those non-cash op­tions in­clud­ed off­sets for state mort­gage and rental oblig­a­tions through the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Bank, out­stand­ing tax li­a­bil­i­ties, tu­ition fees at state in­sti­tu­tions, med­ical cov­er­age, tax con­ces­sions on new and roll-on/roll-off ve­hi­cles, and the con­ver­sion of cash en­ti­tle­ments in­to leave.

The PSA al­so re­ject­ed a re­vised pro­pos­al pre­sent­ed dur­ing dis­cus­sions last Fri­day.

In its lat­est state­ment, the union said ar­rears are not gifts or in­cen­tives, but wages al­ready earned by work­ers.

It al­so ar­gued that many em­ploy­ees would not ben­e­fit from op­tions such as mort­gage off­sets, tax off­sets or oth­er con­di­tion­al arrange­ments.

“Work­ers have dif­fer­ent per­son­al cir­cum­stances and should not be forced in­to ben­e­fits they nei­ther need nor can ac­cess,” the PSA said.

The union added that any set­tle­ment must pro­vide equal val­ue to all work­ers, not on­ly a se­lect group.

Ac­cord­ing to the PSA, the ma­jor­i­ty of work­ers re­quire im­me­di­ate fi­nan­cial re­lief rather than sub­sti­tut­ed ben­e­fits.

The as­so­ci­a­tion main­tained that its po­si­tion re­mains a set­tle­ment of 60 per cent cash and 40 per cent de­ferred cash through in­ter­est-bear­ing bonds.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dr Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) and the PSA were con­tin­u­ing in good faith, but he de­clined to com­ment fur­ther on the dis­cus­sions.

Mean­while, Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Ret’d Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al said the State’s po­si­tion re­mained un­changed.

In a me­dia re­lease dat­ed May 22, Din­di­al said the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer re­mained at 40 per cent cash and 60 per cent non-cash ben­e­fits, with an es­ti­mat­ed set­tle­ment val­ue of $3.8 bil­lion.

He al­so said re­tirees would re­ceive their ar­rears for the pe­ri­od 2014-2018 ful­ly in cash, with pay­ments ex­pect­ed over two to three fi­nan­cial years.