The announcement that the Police Welfare Association (PWA) had accepted the four per cent wage increase offered by the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) shocked the unions that continue to refuse the offer.
Until ASP Gideon Dickson announced on Thursday that PWA members had directed him to accept the offer, only the Amalgamated Workers' Union (AWU) and the TT Defence Force - which does not bargain as a unit - had accepted the government's wage offer.
When the AWU accepted the offer for Port of Spain City Corporation workers in August, it was accused of betraying the collective stance of unions representing the public sector.
The AWU also negotiated increases in November for Bermudez Biscuit Company workers totalling 14 per cent, eight per cent for 2018-2021 and six per cent for 2021-2024.
The TTDF negotiated for allowances for several special-duty postings, including technical operators, permanent reservists and frontline duty with the Inter-Agency Task Force.
Mr Dickson said on Thursday that there had been negotiations on some allowances for officers, but those details are yet to be announced or confirmed.
The police acceptance of the wage offer stunned representatives of the fire services and prisons officers. The rejection of the CPO's offer had been delivered collectively by the three protective services.
This reversal of the initial rejection of the government position on increases suggests that the hard numbers underwriting the four per cent offer have moved beyond angry rhetoric.
The wage offer was an adjustment of the government's initial offer in May, which started at two per cent over eight years, and provoked robust objections.
In June, the Prime Minister said the four per cent pay rise would cost the government $2.5 billion in backpay, with an increase in the wage budget for public servants of more than $500 million annually. That payment will have to be met through borrowing.
While public servants whose representatives have accepted the government's offer are unlikely to be happy about the incremental increase, no union representing them has been able to show how a larger increase would not adversely affect the national budget.
The country is facing global economic uncertainties and deficits compounded by spending more than $5 billion on a mix of social services, business support, the parallel health infrastructure and vaccine purchases during the two and a half years of the covid19 pandemic.
The CPO has referred three unions, representing prisons officers, teachers and firefighters, to a special tribunal of the Industrial Court, acknowledging that negotiations had broken down, in an action that union representatives described as unilateral and draconian.
It's a move that also now seems hasty, given the CPO's success in finding other arrangements that have brought the bargaining positions of public servants and the government closer together.
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