GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine, says talks are con­tin­u­ing to bring a speedy res­o­lu­tion to salary ne­go­ti­a­tions for staff at the in­sti­tu­tion.

An­toine as­sured that the chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion are open with all the rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to en­sure the mat­ter is set­tled as soon as pos­si­ble. She said the talks in­clude the gov­ern­ment as well as the union and the prin­ci­pal's of­fice at UWI.

UWI work­ers were of­fered a two per cent in­crease from the Gov­ern­ment and are cur­rent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ing for the 2015 to 2017 col­lec­tive pe­ri­od.

On Fri­day the cam­pus faced a shut­down as the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT) in­ten­si­fied its protests. WIGUT pres­i­dent Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said mem­bers have been liv­ing on 2014 salaries amidst ris­ing in­fla­tion and in­creased liv­ing costs.

Im­bert told Par­lia­ment on Fri­day it was ‘ab­surd’ to ask tax­pay­ers to fund the cur­rent pro­pos­al of WIGUT which would cost up­wards of $700 mil­lion in back pay.

“If we were to ac­cept the pro­pos­al from WIGUT, the back pay would be $701 mil­lion as of March 2024. The cost of the four per cent of­fer which we have of­fered to every­body else and which is be­ing ac­cept­ed by most trade unions is es­ti­mat­ed at back pay of 79 mil­lion and 12 mil­lion in ad­di­tion­al re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture,” he ex­plained.

Im­bert al­so main­tained that there would not be any shut­down of op­er­a­tions at UWI St Au­gus­tine.

He ex­plained that UWI is fund­ed by the State with hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in sub­ven­tions.

“For 2018-2019 year, Gov­ern­ment’s sub­ven­tion was $517m. For the 2019-2020 year $520m, and for 2020- 2021 it was $528m. There­fore any set­tle­ment of wages at UWI will place the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on the Gov­ern­ment and the tax­pay­ers to fund this in­crease," Im­bert said.