Trade unions push Govt for 10% pay hike in

Senior Reporter/Producer

[email protected]

With the countdown on to the Government’s first Budget since assuming office, two of the nation’s largest union bodies are pressing to see the ten per cent wage offer on the bargaining table in the coming financial year.

And the Public Services Association (PSA) is already confident that it will happen.

But while the Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Kennedy Swaratsingh, said the Government will honour its promises and deliver all commitments outlined in the Budget, he stopped short of confirming that negotiations would commence in the new financial year.

The United National Congress (UNC), as part of its campaign for the 2025 General Elections, promised a baseline ten per cent salary increase for public servants. This pledge was a key part of their “workers’ agenda” and was supported by the PSA and other unions.

Yesterday, during a pre-Budget consultation involving the Government, the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) and the National Trade Union Centre of Trinidad and Tobago (NATUC) at the NUGFW headquarters, Henry Street, Port-of-Spain, PSA president Felisha Thomas reminded Minister Swaratsingh about that pledge.

“I have said in the past and I will continue to say we look forward to no later than this Budget, September/October, where workers can finally see that ten per cent offer placed on the table so that we could recommence negotiations at 10 per cent,” Thomas said to applause from other trade unionists.

The PSA president also sought to remind Swaratsingh that the negotiating periods are 2014-2016 and 2017-2019.

“The very same period that we rejected the offer of four per cent.”

Responding soon after, Swaratsingh, who is also the Minister of Planning, Economic Affairs and Development, sought to assure Thomas that all promises will be kept. However, he did not confirm if the wage negotiation promise would be kept in the upcoming financial year.

“Let me say quite categorically, everything we put into the Budget, we intend to deliver. In the way in which we put it, in the manner in which we put it, and everything we subscribe to in that Budget,” Swaratsingh said.

He added, “So it is the intention of the Honourable Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to fulfil our promise of that payment for the collective bargaining period 2014-2016 and 2017-2019. So, rest assured that we are working extremely hard to make sure and to have that done.”

Guardian Media asked Thomas if she was satisfied with the minister’s response.

The PSA president, who campaigned with the UNC en route to victory, said, “I think he addressed my statement sufficiently by confirming that we can indeed look forward to it in the Budget.”

NATUC secretary general Michael Annisette reinforced the PSA’s call for the promised wage negotiations to begin in the next Budget.

Anisette told those in attendance, “I speak for all the public servants, all the dock workers, all the daily rated workers, all the other workers, nurses, et cetera, and those who, like the port workers, have been living on 2014 salary.”

He said it was a “criminal act” for workers to be paid such outdated salaries.

“And therefore, this Government have a responsibility to redress that in the Budget coming. Let me repeat it. To redress it in the Budget coming. All right? We cannot wait any longer. Fourteen years living on the same wages with costs of living escalating is something that must come to an end, and I know we could find money. We have some ideas of finding money,” he added.

Swartsaingh warns “budget not going to be better”

Swaratsingh told the union members that, as bad as last year’s budget was, “next year’s budget is not going to be any better.”

He lamented that the country’s revenue position may be “even more impaired.”

Swaratsingh explained that the country is ending its fiscal year with a $10 billion shortfall.

“So, we are structuring a Budget having come out of a significant year of reduction in revenues and looking to still see how we could create the momentum in the economic circumstances of our country,” he said.

He added, “In terms of our budget structure, 93 per cent of our budget goes to the current expenditure, which is salaries, pensions, debt repayment, transfers and subsidies, and about six or seven per cent goes towards the infrastructure development.”

The minister, however, expressed hope as she said Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has a plan for economic recovery.

“In this iteration of the Prime Minister 2.0, is one where she has asked us, you know, at some stage we have to stop talking. At some stage, we have to stop doing all this research. At some stage, we have to stop doing all this analysis. The questions before us are simple: How do we build a new economy? And the Honourable Prime Minister has given us a blueprint to do it.”

He said on budget day, the Minister of Finance will explain the Prime Minister’s framework that will create the momentum needed to improve the economy.