OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Front­line work­ers across Trinidad and To­ba­go are grow­ing in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed as fire­fight­ers, teach­ers, and civ­il ser­vants await over­due salary ad­just­ments and back pay, while the process re­mains mired in bu­reau­cra­cy and un­cer­tain­ty.

Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (FSA) pres­i­dent Keone Guy said fire­fight­ers re­main in lim­bo over wage talks for the 2020–2022 pe­ri­od. “We met with the CPO back in April, weeks be­fore the elec­tion, where a five per cent salary in­crease was of­fered,” he said.

“Since then, we’ve re­ceived noth­ing in writ­ing. Our mem­bers are anx­ious and feel ig­nored.”

He added, “Our of­fi­cers put their lives on the line every day. They de­serve re­spect and time­ly recog­ni­tion.”

The frus­tra­tion comes af­ter the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion com­plet­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, se­cur­ing a ten per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants, which comes with $3.8 bil­lion in back pay.

Oth­er unions, ac­cord­ing to their lead­ers, are yet to re­ceive for­mal in­struc­tions from the CPO.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent, Crys­tal Ashe, con­firmed that the teach­ers’ union will meet the CPO in the com­ing week. “We’ve al­so writ­ten to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance,” Ashe said. “Our mem­bers need a clear time­line — they need to know when the mon­ey is com­ing.”

She em­pha­sised, “Teach­ers have fam­i­lies, bills, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties; they’ve been wait­ing pa­tient­ly, but pa­tience has its lim­its.”

“The agree­ments are signed, the Cab­i­net note is com­plete, but the CPO still needs in­struc­tions from the Min­istry of Fi­nance to al­low the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to process pay­ments. Our mem­bers are on the home stretch, but the fi­nal steps are still tak­ing too long.”

The Fire As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent said his mem­bers are grow­ing weary.

“The process in­volves ap­provals from mul­ti­ple of­fices, but our mem­bers can­not con­tin­ue wait­ing in­def­i­nite­ly,” Guy said.

Union lead­ers are now urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to fi­nalise arrange­ments with the CPO through the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

On Thurs­day night, the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) agreed to a ten per cent wage in­crease of­fer from the Gov­ern­ment for the 2014–2016 and 2017–2019 pe­ri­ods.

The of­fer, co­or­di­nat­ed by Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dr Daryl Din­di­al, comes with a fo­cus on eco­nom­ic fea­si­bil­i­ty.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas called it a “good day for her mem­ber­ship.”

Al­though she was in­formed that the im­ple­men­ta­tion in­struc­tions would be sent out to per­ma­nent sec­re­taries to be­gin the au­dit­ing process af­ter Cab­i­net rat­i­fied the note, the PSA leader was still hope­ful that pub­lic ser­vants would re­ceive their back pay by Christ­mas.