Government settles $131m TTEC COLA dispute

Minister of Public Utilities Barry Padarath greets TTEC workers ahead of their departure to Jamaica for an aid mission on November 10. - Photo by Faith Ayoung

PUBLIC Utilities Minister Barry Shiva Padarath said the government has delivered a $131 million settlement to resolve a decade-long outstanding cost of living allowance (COLA) issue affecting approximately 3,000 TTEC workers.

Padarath made the announcement during the House of Representatives’ 12th sitting on November 21. He described the agreement as a historic memorandum of agreement between TTEC and the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU), signed in the early hours of November 13.

This, he said, resulted in the first tranche of retroactive payments being deposited into workers’ bank accounts on November 18.

Padarath said the agreement represents long overdue justice for weekly- and monthly-paid employees whose COLA payments were frozen for nearly ten years.

The settlement introduces new COLA rates for both categories of workers and outlines a four-stage disbursement of retroactive payments between November 2025 and February 2026.

He said the most significant elements of the agreement include a new COLA rate of $5.75 per hour for weekly-paid employees, bringing workers’ total COLA to $15.64 per hour, effective November 20 and payable from December 4. Monthly-paid workers will see their COLA rise by $1,050, bringing the total to $2,721.36, effective December 1 and payable from December 17.

"Workers will be getting money for Christmas."

He said the settlement provides immediate relief to households grappling with rising living costs. Padarath said the financial package also includes retroactive COLA payments amounting to $131,125,076.23, accumulated over years of inaction.

These payments will be issued in four tranches, the first of which has already been deposited.

"Promises made, promises kept, promises delivered. This government is restoring what workers were denied for an entire decade."

He said thousands of workers continued to receive an outdated monthly COLA of $1,720.86 even as food prices, utilities, transportation costs and essential goods rose sharply. He stressed the situation persisted despite clear provisions in the collective agreement requiring COLA adjustments based on movements in the Retail Price Index.

Padarath criticised what he described as ten years of "chronic inaction and neglect", saying the former administration failed to negotiate, adjust or address the accumulating issue.

He said the OWTU’s letter to TTEC on September 17, demanding settlement of the outstanding COLA, reflected a matter that could have been raised at any point during the past decade but would not have been acted upon previously.

He said through respectful, sustained discussions, the government was able to do in a few weeks what the previous administration failed to do in ten years.

Padarath said the memorandum of agreement also embeds safeguards to ensure financial responsibility. These include mandatory monthly cash-flow reviews before each tranche of payment is released, a measure meant to maintain stability at TTEC while honouring obligations to employees.

Calling the settlement "the restoration of dignity and fairness", he said the agreement marks the end of a decade in which workers were sidelined, ignored and denied what was rightfully theirs.

Padarath concluded his contribution, saying it is "just another instance of commitment to workers in this country, signed, sealed and delivered, with money in their bank accounts in time for Christmas 2025."