Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT) pres­i­dent, Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, has urged Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to re­frain from con­duct­ing salary ne­go­ti­a­tions in Par­lia­ment.

Ram­per­sad stressed that such mat­ters should be re­solved through prop­er di­a­logue and not politi­cised on the par­lia­men­tary floor.

Yes­ter­day, WIGUT said lec­tur­ers and staff stayed away from cam­pus as promised and those who were es­sen­tial to the cam­pus op­er­a­tions turned up for work wear­ing black in what the union called, “Black­out Fri­day.”

The UWI work­ers have been of­fered a two per cent in­crease by the Gov­ern­ment and are cur­rent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ing for the 2015 to 2017 col­lec­tive pe­ri­od.

WIGUT said it was of­fered 0-0-2 for the pe­ri­od in ques­tion. It said UWI lec­tur­ers and work­ers were liv­ing on 2014 salaries.

The WIGUT pres­i­dent yes­ter­day ac­cused the Fi­nance Min­is­ter of at­tempt­ing to sway pub­lic opin­ion against uni­ver­si­ty staff. But she said it did not work.

“Well, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance was the one who asked the prin­ci­pal to ad­just the pro­pos­al when we re­ject­ed the two per cent. She made the ad­just­ment, sent it back to him, and he has not re­spond­ed un­til now in Par­lia­ment. So, is he ne­go­ti­at­ing through Par­lia­ment, or is he ne­go­ti­at­ing with the prin­ci­pal, who would then con­vey the mes­sages back to us? It seems like he’s try­ing to sway pub­lic opin­ion, but I’ve seen the com­ments on Face­book, and they’re rais­ing im­por­tant ques­tions,” Ram­per­sad said.

She al­so dis­missed the sug­ges­tion that WIGUT was be­ing un­rea­son­able with its salary de­mand.

“So, what about the amount be­ing al­lo­cat­ed for min­is­ters and politi­cians? Is it more than what the lec­tur­ers are re­quest­ing, or is it less? In any case, I do not wish to ne­go­ti­ate with the min­is­ter through Par­lia­ment. Ne­go­ti­a­tions are con­duct­ed with the em­ploy­er, which is the prin­ci­pal, and the prin­ci­pal ne­go­ti­ates with the min­is­ter.”

She said the union’s of­fer to meet with Min­is­ter Im­bert still stands.

“If the min­is­ter wants to meet di­rect­ly with my mem­bers, as we’ve re­quest­ed, he is free to do so. We’ve even asked the prin­ci­pal to in­vite him. But we do not ne­go­ti­ate through Par­lia­ment,” the WIGUT pres­i­dent added.

Mean­while, Ram­per­sad said the shut­down of the UWI St Au­gus­tine cam­pus was a suc­cess.

“I re­ceived feed­back that sev­er­al de­part­ments were emp­ty, with no staff or stu­dents present. There were a few stu­dents on cam­pus, but not many.

“It seems we gained sig­nif­i­cant trac­tion from the ‘Black­out Fri­day’ ini­tia­tive, as our mem­bers are clear­ly very frus­trat­ed. Based on this re­sponse, I would say the ac­tion has been suc­cess­ful so far,” she said

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the cam­pus, stu­dents said that op­er­a­tions at UWI ap­peared nor­mal.

Sev­er­al stu­dents al­so ex­pressed their sup­port for the staff’s in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.