JESSE RAMDEO

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Crys­tal Ashe, says while trade unions will al­ways seek the best pos­si­ble set­tle­ment for work­ers, a “rea­son­able so­lu­tion” must be reached in the on­go­ing im­passe be­tween the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) over out­stand­ing pub­lic sec­tor ar­rears.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ashe said TTUTA and oth­er unions re­main mind­ful of the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial re­al­i­ties but stressed that work­ers must al­so be treat­ed fair­ly.

“I want the pub­lic and Gov­ern­ment to know that trade unions are in no way un­rea­son­able en­ti­ties. We are well aware of the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, a rea­son­able so­lu­tion must be sought.”

The com­ments come af­ter the PSA re­ject­ed a pro­pos­al from the CPO for the pay­ment of out­stand­ing ar­rears to pub­lic of­fi­cers and re­tirees and an­nounced plans to sub­mit a re­vised pro­pos­al seek­ing 60 per cent cash and 40 per cent de­ferred cash.

In a bul­letin is­sued to mem­bers on May 23, PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said the union re­cent­ly met with the CPO as ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue for out­stand­ing pe­ri­ods cov­er­ing Jan­u­ary 1, 2014 to De­cem­ber 31, 2016, and Jan­u­ary 1, 2017 to De­cem­ber 31, 2019 for the Civ­il Ser­vice, Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

Ac­cord­ing to the PSA, the CPO had pre­sent­ed a pro­pos­al on Jan­u­ary 30, 2026, com­pris­ing 40 per cent cash and 60 per cent non-cash arrange­ments, with the cash com­po­nent to be paid over three fis­cal pe­ri­ods.

The pro­posed non-cash arrange­ments in­clud­ed the off­set­ting of Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Bank mort­gage and rental oblig­a­tions, set­tle­ment of out­stand­ing tax li­a­bil­i­ties, ex­ec­u­tive med­ical cov­er­age val­ued at $3,500, off­set­ting tu­ition fees at state-owned in­sti­tu­tions, tax ex­emp­tions on the pur­chase of new and roll-on/roll-off ve­hi­cles, and the con­ver­sion of cash en­ti­tle­ments in­to leave.

The PSA said it re­ject­ed that pro­pos­al and in­stead sub­mit­ted a counter-pro­pos­al con­sist­ing of 80 per cent cash and 20 per cent de­ferred cash in the form of in­ter­est-bear­ing bonds.

Mean­while, for­mer PSA pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus ar­gued that the union would ul­ti­mate­ly have lit­tle choice but to ac­cept the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Bap­tiste-Primus said: “PSA has no al­ter­na­tive in the fi­nal analy­sis but to ac­cept the CPO’s of­fer as the pres­i­dent is high­ly com­pro­mised.”

She fur­ther stat­ed: “Re­mem­ber that it is not the per­son­al po­si­tion of the CPO but rather the po­si­tion of the Gov­ern­ment. The pres­i­dent is, in fact, part of the Gov­ern­ment. She has ab­solute­ly no bar­gain­ing chip nor wig­gle room; as a mat­ter of fact, she is un­able to en­gage in any trade-offs.”

Bap­tiste-Primus added that Thomas was “sim­ply go­ing through the mo­tions of counter pro­pos­als” and claimed that “at the end of the road the pres­i­dent will have to put her tail be­tween her legs and ac­cept the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer.”

She de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as “a very painful les­son from which all in­de­pen­dent and non-aligned trade unions should learn.”

On Mon­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the State and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion are con­tin­u­ing in good faith, while Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Ret’d Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al main­tained that the Gov­ern­ment’s “best and fi­nal of­fer” on out­stand­ing pub­lic sec­tor ar­rears re­mains un­changed de­spite the union’s re­jec­tion of the pro­pos­al.