PSA rejoices as CPO offers 10%: Hope for Xmas back pay

Minister of Labour Leroy Baptiste, centre, embraces PSA president Felisha Thomas, left, and another PSA member, outside the Parliament before the budget presentation on October 13. -

THE long-running wage dispute between the State and the Public Services Association (PSA) moved a step closer to resolution on November 21 as the union received a formal ten per cent salary offer covering two outstanding negotiation periods.

The offer in the form of a letter was delivered during a meeting between the PSA, the Personnel Department and the Ministry of Finance, where acting Chief Personnel Officer Wendy Barton made a presentation on the state of the economy. The substantive CPO, Dr Daryl Dindial, is out of the country.

PSA president Felisha Thomas had been agitated ahead of the meeting and expressed annoyance that the ten per cent offer was not originally scheduled to be deliberated.

However, at the meeting, the PSA was handed the long-awaited proposal – Thomas’ biggest win since assuming office in March. It was a major promise to public servants by the UNC leading up to the April 28 general election.

Thomas had urged public servants to support the UNC. Following the victory, Thomas was placed on the board of the North Central Regional Health Authority while her predecessor Leory Baptiste is now Minister of Labour.

According to a statement from the Personnel Department on November 21, the offer applies to officers in the civil service, Tobago House of Assembly and statutory authorities for January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2016 and January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2019.

The release said the economic briefing remained a legitimate part of the bargaining process, providing “an up-to-date, official and holistic overview of TT’s economic and fiscal position” to guide negotiations.

Barton said it ensured the PSA entered talks with a “clear understanding of current economic conditions, fiscal constraints and national priorities,” and reaffirmed the department’s commitment to a “balanced, transparent and data-driven negotiation process.”

The two bargaining periods referenced in the offer span administrations and have been the subject of repeated unresolved negotiations for nearly a decade. Under the former PNM government, the State’s last formal public-sector wage offer was four per cent, covering the same 2014-2019 period, which several major unions – including the PSA – rejected. That proposal remained on the table through several rounds of public-sector talks and became a persistent point of conflict.

The PSA under former president Watson Duke had also accused the State of long delays in settling arrears and increments, contributing to the backlog now being addressed.

The former government has cited fiscal constraints tied to the 2015-2017 collapse in energy revenues, the covid19 economic downturn and subsequent volatility in natural gas production as central reasons for the prolonged wage freeze.

Unions have consistently countered that workers carried the burden of austerity and that any settlement must reflect years of stagnation and increased cost of living.

The new government’s decision to pursue a higher offer represents the first material shift in the State’s position on the 2014-2019 negotiations since the four per cent proposal was issued.

Hours after the meeting, Thomas confirmed receipt of the offer in a video message, holding the letter and declaring, “Ten per cent is here.”

She told members, “Today the executive of the PSA met with the Personnel Department and received a formal offer on your behalf of ten per cent… promise made; yet another promise kept.”

Thomas thanked Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Finance Minister Davendranath Tancoo for delivering on the Workers’ Agenda, saying, “They continue to put workers on their agenda and for that we must be grateful.”

She added, “Every time they hear ten per cent… it seems as though public officers, getting closer to receiving ten per cent, it tears them up inside… Eat your heart out. Ten per cent is real. Four per cent is off the table, long gone.”

She earlier told reporters the PSA had insisted the negotiations were not starting from the beginning.

“What the PSA is interested in at this point is the offer or the mandate that was placed on the table by the Minister of Finance… We have in our hands an offer of ten per cent, which the PSA will be responding to this evening.

“Our main aim is to ensure we close these negotiations and put some money in our members’ pockets by Christmas.”

Before entering Parliament on November 21, Tancoo reaffirmed that the CPO had been instructed to put the proposal before the union. He also confirmed the government has the funds to make the offer.

“It’s already in the public domain that the CPO has been requested to put to the PSA the ten per cent wage offer,” he said.

“Just to be clear, ten per cent is a figure, but there is a process for which negotiations must take place… How it ends is based on the conversation between the CPO and PSA.”

Newsday has not yet confirmed the detailed configuration of the offer beyond the ten per cent headline figure, or whether the PSA met its stated intention to issue a same-day response.