Tancoo: Government respects collective bargaining, fair wages

Minister of Finance Davendranath Tancoo. - Photo by Angelo Marcelle

FINANCE MINISTER Davendranath Tancoo is addressing Regional Health Authority (RHA) workers who have threatened to engage in a day of rest and reflection and stay away from work, if they do not receive the ten per cent wage increase which the UNC promised public servants during the general election campaign earlier this year.

In a news release on December 12, Tancoo said government respects the collective bargaining process and remains committed to good-faith engagement with the appropriate labour organisations.

He said, “In this regard, the government therefore calls on all recognised majority unions representing RHA employees to submit formal wage proposals directly to the RHAs, so that lawful, transparent negotiations can commence, that is guided by fiscal discipline and the State’s capacity to sustain increases.”

He added, “The government respects the collective bargaining process and remains committed to good-faith engagement with the appropriate labour organisations.

“We are open to fair wage adjustments where they can be responsibly funded.”

While Tancoo respected the rights of RHA personnel the right to protest, it hoped patient care and essential services will be protected at all times.

“RHAs are public sector bodies created under their own Act and are not part of the core public service governed by the Civil Service Act.”

Tancoo said, “When RHAs were first operationalised, staff who transferred from the Civil Service and statutory authorities were guaranteed that, at the point of transfer, they would not be placed on less favourable terms.”

The ministry added that was a one-time safeguard, “not an openended guarantee that every future Civil Service wage increase would automatically follow them into the RHAs.”

On January 13, he continued, the Trinidad and Tobago Nursing Association was certified as the recognised majority union for certain nursing positions at the Eastern RHA. The association is now entitled to engage in collective bargaining for this group under the Industrial Relations Act.

Tancoo said, “In law, wage settlements for RHA employees, must come through negotiations between each RHA and its recognised majority union under the Industrial Relations Act. They cannot simply be imported by extending the agreement recently concluded between the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) and the Public Services Association (PSA) for public officers.”

Tancoo repeated, “Only officers who remain public officers within the meaning of the Civil Service Act are entitled to and will receive the revised terms agreed between the CPO and the PSA.”

Tancoo said, “Extending those terms to all RHA staff who are no longer public officers would go beyond the legal authority of the State, because the RHAs – not the CPO – are their employers.”

The PSA and the CPO signed an MoA on December 2 for the bargaining periods of 2014-2016 and 2017-2019, including a ten per cent wage increase with new salary payments starting in January 2026 and retroactive allowances from January 1, 2014.