OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

The West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT) is still await­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ (UWI) St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus re­gard­ing the next steps in their long-stand­ing salary ne­go­ti­a­tion im­passe.

Last week, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley stat­ed that he had in­struct­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to ad­dress the is­sue.

De­spite this, no up­dates have been pro­vid­ed, leav­ing WIGUT frus­trat­ed and con­tin­u­ing with their in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

WIGUT, which rep­re­sents aca­d­e­m­ic, se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive and pro­fes­sion­al staff at UWI, has been protest­ing for over two weeks. The union’s de­mands cen­tre on salary in­creas­es and the res­o­lu­tion of ne­go­ti­a­tions un­re­solved since 2014. Staff at the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus have not re­ceived salary ad­just­ments, un­like their coun­ter­parts in Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica, who have se­cured sig­nif­i­cant rais­es.

In ad­di­tion, WIGUT has crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for cit­ing eco­nom­ic con­straints to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers while re­cent­ly ac­cept­ing the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion’s 120th re­port which rec­om­mend­ed large salary in­creas­es for the Prime Min­is­ter, Pres­i­dent and oth­er high-rank­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, WIGUT pres­i­dent Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the lack of progress.

“Well, we don’t know. So maybe they have, be­cause re­mem­ber the min­is­ter doesn’t en­gage us, the min­is­ter would have to en­gage her [the UWI Cam­pus prin­ci­pal]. And I don’t think they have met. I don’t know if they have any such arrange­ment. But no, noth­ing new on that front. But our protest ac­tion con­tin­ues un­til we get a con­crete of­fer. So, this week we have blacked out.”

The protests un­der­score the fi­nan­cial strug­gles faced by staff, ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the ris­ing cost of liv­ing and UWI’s on­go­ing fi­nan­cial cri­sis, Seep­er­sad said.

Cam­pus prin­ci­pal Dr Rose-Marie Belle An­toine has stat­ed that the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s abil­i­ty to re­spond is con­strained by di­rec­tives from the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

De­spite on­go­ing protests, WIGUT has as­sured that cur­rent UWI ex­am­i­na­tions will pro­ceed with­out dis­rup­tion. How­ev­er, Ram­per­sad warned that if there is no tan­gi­ble progress by Jan­u­ary 7, grades could be with­held. “So, we con­tin­ue our protest ac­tion. The stu­dents are writ­ing ex­ams every week, but if we don’t get some con­crete progress by Jan­u­ary 7, the grades could be in jeop­ardy.”

Speak­ing on be­half of the stu­dents, new­ly elect­ed UWI Guild pres­i­dent Josef Paty em­pha­sised the guild’s com­mit­ment to stu­dent wel­fare.

He stat­ed, “The Guild Coun­cil is go­ing to meet, and stu­dent wel­fare is al­ways our num­ber one pri­or­i­ty.”