National Trade Union Centre (Natuc) general secretary Michael Annisette says a lot of strategies were in place for a “sustained expression of workers’ disaffection of the economic violence and abuse” being attempted by the government.
The first of these strategies is expected to be a march around Port of Spain from Memorial Park to the Chief Personnel Officer’s (CPO) office in Woodbrook to the Financial Complex on Independence Square on May 27.
On May 16, during the debate on the Variation of Appropriation) (Financial Year 2022) Bill, 2022, Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced TT achieved a surplus of $1.98 billion at the end of April. He said one of the things the government would do with the increased revenue was to pay increased wages to public servants once negotiations between the unions and CPO concluded.
Then, on Thursday, CPO Dr Daryl Dindial offered hourly, daily and weekly-rated workers of the Central Government, the Tobago House of Assembly and municipal corporations 0-0-0-0-1-0-0-1 for salary increases from January 2014 to January 2021.
Annisette said unions would go back to the negotiation table but they wanted to make it clear that they rejected any attempts of wage constraints when there are no control mechanisms that address increase in prices and the cost of living had been increasing.
“That offer of two per cent over an eight-year period demonstrates an insensitivity that is beyond description and everybody in TT knows what has happened based of the cost of living and everything else.
“For a government to treat police officers, the firemen, health care workers, port workers, bus drivers, MTS workers, WASA workers, government daily rated workers, public servants this way is a clear demonstration of the disregard and disrespect that this government has for the working class in TT.”
He said trade unionist understood the “economic realities” of the country but they had to craft a better future for TT. One where workers were treated as human beings, their contributions were respected and they did not have to live from pay cheque to pay cheque.
He asked how a two-cent on the dollar increase could be justified when gas, flour, meat and other essential goods and services had increased significantly.
“This is a crime against the farmer and the business community too. If workers do not have the purchasing power to maintain a standard of living, who suffers? As a consequence of that a lot of business had to shut down. When you engage in wage restraints and low wages, you destroy your economy.”
Instead, he said sustainable jobs, decent living wages and job-led growth had to be part of the country’s economic strategy.
According to Annisette, Dindial said he had limited funds to share among all, asked the union for proposals concerning the allowances they wanted, said they could not merge cost of living allowance, and that the proposals had to be current.
[caption id="attachment_955943" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Government workers cheer on union leaders during a press conferenc
