A date and time of Monday November 7 at 1.30 pm has been set for five labour-based associations to appear before a Special Tribunal of the industrial Court, after they were referred by Minister of Finance Colm Imbert.
They are the T&T Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), Prison Officers Association (POA), Fire Service Association (FSA), Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Social and Welfare Association (TTPSSWA) and the Public Services Association (PSA).
The announcement of the referral to the court was made by Imbert in his wind up of the 2022/2023 Budget debate.
It followed repeated rejection of the Government’s four per cent salary increase offer for the period 2014 to 2019.
But while they have their day in court set for a case management conference, they vehemently reject it.
PSA president Leroy Baptiste told Guardian Media on Thursday that even after the referral, they continued to have “sidebar” meetings with Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) Dr Daryl Dindial and they were making strides in “closing the gap on some terms and conditions for their members.”
This is why he finds the hearing counter-productive at this stage of the process.
“It is the intention of the PSA to, when we go before the court, to say to the court I don’t know why we are down here, from our perspective this is premature,” he said.
He also questioned why the rush to go to court.
“Clearly, the Government seems to know something about the court that we don’t because they seem to be suggesting that the court is a big whip,” he added.
Baptiste said the PSA will be pressing for the court to have the parties engage in conciliation.
Newly elected TTUTA president Martin Lum Kin shared the same perspective.
“Our approach would be we will make the appearance and we will argue for conciliation,” he said.
Lum Kim said TTUTA was quite surprised by the negotiations being referred to the tribunal.
“The CPO made an offer, we made a counter-offer and we were hoping that although the CPO said that was the final offer, we were hopeful that we would have been able to get the opportunity to bargain even further,” he explained.
As it relates to prison officers, POA Industrial Relations Officer Wendell Mitchell said a feeling of shock and surprise rang through the association after the Minister’s announcement, as it had only had four meetings with the CPO.
He said they were going to attend the court proceedings with open minds but, “if we are given the opportunity to speak on that day, we will be asking to go back around the (negotiating) table.”
For his comrade, acting Assistant Superintendent of Police Gideon Dickson in the TTPSSWA, a tribunal is not an option.
Dickson told Guardian Media that based on legal advice, conciliation must be done before court proceedings and this is the route his association will be taking. He said if they go to conciliation, they are going to put on record the arguments why the 4 per cent offer is not adequate. Not only that, he said they will also be asking that police officers receive an incentive similar to what healthcare workers received for performing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We also believe that consideration should be given to a one-off payment to all the officers who would have worked throughout the pandemic,” he said.
Dickson said police officers have been on restricted leave since 2019 and have served the country well during a tough time.
“We had to work throughout three elections, throughout the pandemic, throughout every change of the regulations, I can go on and on... while the rest of the nation got time to stay home and operate based on the discretion of the Government the enforcers of the law and while we were looking for others to come out and join us in that fight it was we alone! Thirty-nine officers have died as it relates to COVID,” he said.
In the Budget, it was announced that $200 million would be set aside to give a one-off payment to all healthcare workers in T&T.
