Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Lead­ers of sev­er­al unions in T&T say they are not hope­ful that the ap­point­ment of Colm Im­bert as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties will bring any mean­ing­ful change to the or­gan­i­sa­tions they rep­re­sent.

Im­bert, who pre­vi­ous­ly held the port­fo­lio of Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, is tak­ing over at a crit­i­cal time when ne­go­ti­a­tions for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers re­main un­re­solved.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers Union David Forbes voiced con­cerns over the un­re­solved job eval­u­a­tion and wage ne­go­ti­a­tions that have been pend­ing for sev­er­al years.

He said Im­bert, hav­ing over­seen the Min­istry of Fi­nance, was well aware of the eco­nom­ic cli­mate that had sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed work­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly due to in­fla­tion and ris­ing fu­el prices be­tween 2014 and 2016.

“We are look­ing for­ward to ad­dress­ing the most press­ing is­sue for work­ers at this point, which is the set­tle­ment of our ne­go­ti­a­tions,” Forbes said.

“The min­is­ter him­self would re­call that we have copied him on sev­er­al cor­re­spon­dences re­gard­ing the out­stand­ing job eval­u­a­tion and our coun­ter­pro­pos­als.” 

The Postal Work­ers Union is al­so push­ing for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions made by con­sul­tants re­gard­ing work­er com­pen­sa­tion and job eval­u­a­tions.

“This is­sue is not new to the pub­lic or the Gov­ern­ment,” Forbes said.

“Now that Im­bert is the line min­is­ter, we ex­pect him to give this mat­ter the at­ten­tion it de­serves.” 

New­ly elect­ed Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas ex­pressed cau­tion about the prospects of mean­ing­ful change un­der Im­bert’s lead­er­ship.

“We have been deal­ing with Mr Im­bert in re­la­tion to salary ne­go­ti­a­tions, and there has been no pos­i­tive out­come,” Thomas stat­ed.

“The same can be said for our deal­ings with him re­gard­ing work­ers at the Board of In­land Rev­enue and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion—again, no pos­i­tive out­come.”

When asked about the WASA trans­for­ma­tion process, Thomas in­di­cat­ed that no im­me­di­ate pol­i­cy changes were ex­pect­ed un­der the new min­is­ter.

“I don’t want to pre­judge, but this is not a change in gov­ern­ment,” she said.

“The Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion re­mains the same, and so does their ap­proach to the trans­for­ma­tion of WASA.”

Mean­while, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) pres­i­dent Joanne Ogeer has called on Min­is­ter Im­bert to take a bal­anced and fair ap­proach to ad­dress­ing the con­cerns of stake­hold­ers in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor.

She said the union re­mained hope­ful that Im­bert would not fol­low the path of his pre­de­ces­sor Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who was of­ten crit­i­cised for pri­ori­tis­ing the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty over oth­er en­ti­ties un­der his purview.

De­spite their con­cerns, the CWU has ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to work with Min­is­ter Im­bert, em­pha­sis­ing that they are nei­ther pre­judg­ing his per­for­mance nor dis­miss­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­struc­tive di­a­logue.

“We are not say­ing he will be the best, nor are we say­ing he is the worst, but we are giv­ing him a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty,” Ogeer stat­ed.