An­na-Lisa Paul and Kevon Felmine

Un­der heavy down­pour, scores of an­gry work­ers marched out­side the Prime Min­is­ter’s res­i­dence last evening, de­mand­ing he call the gen­er­al elec­tion and put an end to what they be­lieve is a ‘self-serv­ing’ salary hike.

The Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU) was joined by the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers Union and the Avi­a­tion Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Al­lied Work­ers Union as they protest­ed out­side Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, call­ing for him to “take his band of ban­dits and go now.”

They ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of rush­ing to fill their pock­ets with the ac­cep­tance of the pro­pos­al by the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC). The unions are de­mand­ing that the re­port be tabled in the Par­lia­ment so it can be de­bat­ed in front of the peo­ple who placed them in of­fice.

Brav­ing the rain as they ramped up protest ac­tion last evening, work­ers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) shift­ed gears to pick­et out­side Dr Row­ley’s res­i­dence. The work­ers were orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to pick­et Flagstaff, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James, where Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is be­lieved to be stay­ing, but lat­er shift­ed lo­ca­tion even though Dr Row­ley is cur­rent­ly in Bar­ba­dos.

De­spite this, OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get said Dr Row­ley would get the mes­sage that the trade union move­ment was pre­pared to es­ca­late the ac­tion with the hopes of get­ting them out of of­fice.

The row­dy bunch marched in time to the rhythm sec­tion.

Ro­get said the T&TEC work­ers had not re­ceived a salary in­crease since 2014, and the cur­rent ne­go­ti­a­tions have stalled. Ro­get told the gath­er­ing, “The stan­dard of liv­ing of the peo­ple in this coun­try has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed rapid­ly over the last nine years and con­tin­ues.

An­gry as work­ers con­tin­ue to suf­fer, he said, “They would cal­lous­ly and calm­ly ac­cept an SRC re­port that gives him­self some 47.2 per cent in­crease in salary.”

Giv­ing the Gov­ern­ment fail­ing grades in the ar­eas of crime, en­er­gy and the econ­o­my, he added, “It is to­tal mis­man­age­ment with ar­ro­gance.” Ro­get vowed, “We are not pre­pared to take one more minute of this non­sense that pass­es for gov­er­nance in this coun­try.”

Stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the OW­TU, the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) stat­ed in a press re­lease yes­ter­day, “As cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to strug­gle to make ends meet in a coun­try grap­pling with eco­nom­ic de­cline due to strin­gent gov­ern­ment mea­sures, the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ac­cept the SRC’s rec­om­men­da­tions, which pro­vide sub­stan­tial pay in­creas­es and back pay for them­selves while of­fer­ing min­i­mal sup­port to those who dri­ve the econ­o­my, clear­ly re­flects a lack of con­cern for the needs and is­sues fac­ing or­di­nary peo­ple in our na­tion.”

The SRC has pro­posed in­creas­es for mem­bers of the Gov­ern­ment, along with those on the op­po­si­tion bench and oth­er top of­fi­cials.

At Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Dr Row­ley said he agreed to ac­cept the SRC’s salary hike pro­pos­al. Ro­get blast­ed the ac­cep­tance of the sub­stan­tial pay in­crease, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the Gov­ern­ment on­ly agreed to pro­vide a four per cent in­crease for six years to pub­lic ser­vants.

The union said this “clear­ly high­lights their dis­con­nect from the cit­i­zens they vowed to serve.” Ro­get dis­missed to­ken sug­ges­tions that the work­ing class may be giv­en a high­er in­crease, as he said, “Call the elec­tion now and let the peo­ple have a say.”

March planned for De­cem­ber 7

Mean­while, JTUM sound­ed the alarm to amp up protest ac­tion. Ro­get urged cit­i­zens to come out on De­cem­ber 7 and gath­er out­side White­hall, Queen’s Park West, Port-of-Spain, from 9 am as they move to send a clear and strong sig­nal that enough is enough.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, JTUM de­nounced Dr Row­ley and his gov­ern­ment’s ac­cep­tance of the SRC re­port, say­ing it is “ar­ro­gant dis­re­gard” for work­ers and cit­i­zens strug­gling to make ends meet. They de­scribed it as “self-serv­ing and ob­scene.”

Agree­ing that ac­cept­ing the salary in­creas­es is dis­re­spect­ful, Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) Po­lit­i­cal Leader David Ab­du­lah not­ed that Row­ley’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion rest­ed on claims that he and his min­is­ters work hard for the coun­try.

Ab­du­lah ar­gued that such a ra­tio­nale dis­re­spects all the hard-work­ing cit­i­zens who the Gov­ern­ment told to tight­en their belts and en­dure over a decade with­out mean­ing­ful wage in­creas­es. Many pub­lic ser­vants, he said, have had “four and five per cent rammed down their throats” by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al.

Ab­du­lah be­lieves it in­di­cates that Row­ley, who al­ready lives com­fort­ably, is look­ing out for him­self and is un­con­cerned about the wel­fare of cit­i­zens, many of whom strug­gle from pay­day to pay­day. He urged the trade union move­ment and cit­i­zens to stand up against the de­ci­sion, call­ing for protests.

“If cit­i­zens protest in large enough num­bers, then that might force the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate, the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­ers to think twice about what they are do­ing and to pull back from this de­ci­sion.” When asked if Cab­i­net mem­bers de­serve salary in­creas­es, Ab­du­lah un­der­scored that while the SRC con­ducts job eval­u­a­tions, it does not car­ry out per­for­mance ap­praisals.

“If Trinidad and To­ba­go did a per­for­mance ap­praisal, would these politi­cians de­serve a salary in­crease? I do not think so. Giv­en the high crime rates, an econ­o­my in trou­ble, crum­bling in­fra­struc­ture, and fail­ing in­sti­tu­tions, their per­for­mance does not war­rant such an in­crease.”