Trade unions have called on all public servants to prepare to send a strong message to the government by shutting down the public sector in the coming days, in rejection of its counterproposal for 2014-2021 salary increases.

The Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) Dr Daryl Dindial, in his counterproposal to trade unions, offered no increase for the period 2014-2017, one per cent for 2018, no further increase for the period 2019-2020, and one per cent for the 2021 negotiating period. That amounts to a two per cent increase over eight years.

The offer was made to hourly, daily and weekly rated workers of central government, the Tobago House of Assembly and Municipal Corporation employees.

Emotions ran high among union leaders and their members at an emergency press conference hosted by the National Union of Government and Federated Workers (NUGFW) on Friday afternoon as they addressed what they described as an insult to the working class.

The briefing was attended by National Trade Union Centre (Natuc) general secretary Michael Annisette, president general of the Amalgamated Workers Union Michael Prentice, Contractors and General Workers Union general secretary Ermine Debique and Transport and General Workers Union president Judy Charles.

The unions said they were hopeful that after Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced the government's decision to use some of its $1.98 billion revenue surplus to pay public-sector wage increases, workers would have been given a fair share.

But Thursday’s offer left unions speechless as NUGFW president general James Lambert said that was the first time in history “such a disrespectful, shameful and hogwash proposal has ever been made.”

Lambert told his members the CPO’s proposal was made to provoke unions and public servants into rebellion.

“Who has an ear to hear must hear and who have eyes to see must see. Today isn’t about the political party, it’s about the livelihood of our children. The time has come for us to shut down the country.

“That will be the only way we would make the government realise and bring them to their senses that enough is enough.

"He’s boasting he raised gas and they didn’t riot. We are worse off and you expect us to work with smiling faces?”

The unions were planning to meet on Friday afternoon discuss their next step.

“This is dictatorship! In eight years you have given us zero for six. The government of the day should be ashamed of themselves. You boasted of the windfall and the monies generated from the energy sector.

The unions bashed government for the take-it-or-leave-it negotiations and collective bargaining approach

“Could you imagine the people who have sacrificed during the pandemic – nurses, doctors, policemen – have left their family home to come out to ensure the country functions. And now you give them zero, zero, zero. What about those how have retired?”

He explained the unions were expecting a fairer offer especially after they offered