Port of Spain, Trinidad–Public sector trade unions warned the Trinidad and Tobago government to prepare for more industrial action. They led members in protest action against a two percent wage offer for 2014-21.
“NATUC (National Trade Union Centre) views the Rowley-led government proposal as an act of economic violence and an abuse against all government employees and therefore unreservedly states that the two-percent offer is insensitive, misdirected, regrettably confrontational and counterproductive,” the umbrella union body said.
Public sector trade union members demonstrate for higher wages on Friday
NATUC general secretary, Michael Anisette, addressing the protestors, warned Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley and Finance Minister Colm Imbert that they had “raised the sleeping child…and when you disrespect workers, you have disrespected the country.
“This is the first of the several struggles. Brothers and sisters, we have to make sacrifices…even if it means giving up a day …in the interest of feeding your children. This is what the struggle is all about.”
President of the Public Service Association (PSA), Leroy Baptiste, accused the government of playing games. Every year, billions of dollars are spent with little or nothing going to workers.
“Here they are saying, where they go get the money from….let me tell you this, every year this country spends over 50 billion dollars in the budget, whether it is a deficit budget they borrow, whatever it is they spend it…and workers catching their nenen…
“Therefore, comrades, we say to them it is not about where they are getting the money from, it is what they are spending the money on,” Baptiste said, telling the government to “find the money and pay public officers.”
President of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM), Ancil Roget, told workers to stand united in their demands for the salary increases being sought by their representative bargaining agents.
Prime Minister Rowley has defended the two percent wage offer saying unless his administration borrows vast sums of money, it will not be able to afford the salary increases being sought by the trade unions representing public servants.
He told a public meeting of his ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) on Tuesday night that an increase of four percent, two percent for each of the two collective bargaining periods, would cost TT$1.45 billion (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) in arrears and an additional cost of TT$730 million annually to meet salaries and wages of public servants.
That would cost a back pay of TT3.6 billion and an additional annual cost of TT$1.4 billion. Do you see that money in the Treasury in Trinidad and Tobago at this time? Do you see the Minister of Finance in Trinidad and Tobago be able to find that money every month to ensure that you get paid at the end of the month?
“We will have to borrow the money, and if we do that on this scale, in this way, and the oil price and gas price change, we are leaping in the dark,” he said, noting that circumstances beyond Trinidad and Tobago’s country’s control, such as the war in Ukraine, resulted in unusually high oil prices and some improvement in the gas price.
Rowley said the windfall could be approximately four billion dollars. He said while the government had indicated that some of the windfalls would go to public servants, it had to determine what was affordable.
“We have to give the public servants a reasonable offer because we don’t need anybody to tell us the pressure that the people of this country, like the public servants, have been under. We said that we would not go to the IMF; we will prescribe our own medicine, allowing us to do what no IMF program will allow us to do,” he added.
On Thursday, unions representing the Trinidad and Tobago Prisons and Fire Services announced they had rejected the latest offer. Instead, they presented a letter to the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) Daryl Dindial outlining their grouses.
Prison Officers’ Association president Cerron Richards described the government’s counter-proposal as disrespectful. In contrast, the Fire Officers Association president Leo Ramkissoon said, “what has been perpetrated on us is not an offer, it is an assault, and members view it as such.”
“Come with 10 percent to start, and we can start to work our way for a reasonable figure between that and the 14 percent that is supposed to be applicable for the 2014 to 2016 period, and then we can talk about 2017 going forward,” he added.
The CPO said that the public sector negotiations remain an ongoing process.
Earlier this week, the Finance Minister said the government is spending TT$19 billion annually to pay salaries in the state sector.
“Out of Total Revenue of $47 billion, this is 40 percent of total revenue,” he added.
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