Frus­trat­ed Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) sup­port staff staged a plac­ard protest out­side the South Cam­pus in San Fer­nan­do de­mand­ing a pay in­crease around mid­day on Fri­day.

Lament­ing that for 18 years they have had no ad­just­ments to their salaries, the work­ers said they are bare­ly mak­ing ends meet and they can no longer re­main qui­et. 

Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union’s deputy del­e­gate, Kim­fa Mau­rice-Coop­er said since 2007 work­ers’ salaries have not been in­creased.

“Ne­go­ti­a­tions are on the ta­ble. Man­age­ment re­fus­es to set­tle the ne­go­ti­a­tions and we are here to stand for our rights be­cause gov­ern­ment come, gov­ern­ment go, we are in the same po­si­tion. No one is giv­ing us any­thing. We are not get­ting any in­crease. The cost of liv­ing is high. Mem­bers of staff, their fam­i­lies would have grown from 2007 to now.”

While man­age­ment has claimed that they have no funds to in­crease salaries, Mau­rice-Coop­er, a se­nior li­brary as­sis­tant, said oth­er mem­bers of staff have been pro­mot­ed and man­age­ment “is liv­ing lav­ish­ly” while the “low­er end staff is eat­ing the crumbs from man­age­ment’s ta­ble.”

Com­plain­ing that the sup­port staff is be­ing treat­ed un­fair­ly, Mau­rice-Coop­er said it ap­pears that man­age­ment has no heart as their pleas and cries have fall­en on deaf ears.

“That’s why we are out here to­day try­ing to speak to man­age­ment. Put some­thing on the ta­ble, of­fer us some­thing. Pay off peo­ple their gra­tu­ity, pro­mote per­sons who are in the gear of be­ing pro­mot­ed, but noth­ing is be­ing done and for long we have been tak­ing it.”

Un­til man­age­ment agrees to meet them on the bar­gain­ing ta­ble to find a so­lu­tion, Mau­rice-Coop­er said they, as well as their col­leagues from oth­er cam­pus­es, will con­tin­ue to en­gage in protests.

Con­tact­ed for UTT chair­man Pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert said he has not re­ceived any pos­i­tive di­rec­tive from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer. 

“I un­der­stand the sit­u­a­tion but un­for­tu­nate­ly there is noth­ing I can do. I have to wait on the di­rec­tions of the share­hold­er. The share­hold­er is the State, and the State in this re­gard is rep­re­sent­ed by the CPO,” he said.