Newsday
THE digital meeting known as by the Chief Personnel Officer, Commander Dr Daryl Dindial, on October 24, used to be met with almost universal derision by the unions he hoped to begin up wage negotiations with.
PSA president Leroy Baptiste disregarded the meeting as a “stunt” after an announcement used to be issued regarding the meeting’s intent by the CPO’s space of enterprise.
OWTU participants staged a roar outside the predominant offices of T&TEC on the morning of the meeting, a clear rebuttal of the CPO’s overture. The OWTU claims that it used to be now not invited to the meeting.
Eleven unions were invited to take half in the meeting but several did now not, missing a dialogue the CPO’s space of enterprise described as “critical for working out the fiscal ambiance in which public provider wage negotiations will stand on.”
Changed into as soon as this a snub? An provide that union executives would possibly well now not wait on monetary analysts in a position to reading the prolonged funds documents, reaching their have conclusions regarding the authorities’s discipline and its capacity to spice up elevated wages?
After announcing the proposed five per cent negotiating discipline in the funds speech, the Finance Minister explained that this can add $475 million to recurrent expenditure alongside with again pay to 2024 amounting to more than $1 billion.
The CPO hoped that Thursday’s meeting would “foster collaborative dialogue,” but all it seems to be to bear accomplished is to take the hackles of the collective trade union leadership.
Negotiations between a trade union and the CPO involve more than excellent the incremental elevate that’s being offered, though it is a ought to bear that the lengthen now not now not as much as address the upward thrust in the worth of dwelling over the negotiation interval.
The controversial four per cent lengthen used to be sweetened for some unions by making other adjustments of their working conditions.
When the CPO offered unions representing the general public sector two per cent in 2022 to screen an eight-365 days span that incorporated three bargaining courses, 2014-2021, the authorities’s discipline used to be disregarded by Natuc’s overall secretary Michael Annisette as “economic violence and abuse.”
Mr Baptiste argued then that meals prices had elevated by 44 per cent, good gas by 121 per cent, diesel by 161 per cent and maxi taxi fares by 43 per cent.
For more than a decade, the verbalize has been tardy in starting negotiations, taken intractable positions and prolonged the time spent bargaining to frustrating lengths.
While these talks continue, the worth of the greenback paid to workers shrinks.
The authorities would possibly well per chance be in the hunt for to weaken unions, however the plan moreover risks pricey strikes, lag-late and work-to-rule actions by union participants.
While the CPO is constrained by the authorities’s capacity to pay, closing week’s digital meeting sounded less like an overture to valid collective bargaining and more like a justification for five per cent.
The response by unions used to be totally predictable.
