Trinidad and Tobago public workers off the job, say no compromise on wages

Public workers will remain off the job until Monday after the latest round of negotiations with the Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration Tuesday failed to break the deadlock over salary increases.

The government is sticking to its original offer of zero, zero and one per cent over the three-year period 2008 to 2010, but the Public Service Association (PSA), the workers' bargaining agent, says it will not accept a single digit offer.

PSA President Watson Duke, emerging from the latest round of talks with the chief personnel officer (CPO) said that no new offer had been made by the government. The PSA insists that the lowest category of public workers must receive a salary of no less than TT$6,000 (US$1,000).

"We are saying that the PSA will be officially closing its office from this evening to reopen on Monday. All offices of the PSA are closed. We are saying the next working day for workers in this country is Monday," Duke said.

Duke said that the CPO "has been her usual disrespectful self", offering one per cent for public officers, plus TT$66 million (US$11 million) to be split among 3,300 public workers.

Duke said he had no interest in contacting Finance Minister Winston Dookeran "unless he calls me".

"The most they could do is not pay you. What is $50 anyway," said Duke,

Today, Friday, is a public
holiday in Trinidad and Tobago to mark the Divali festival of lights.

In a statement issued ahead of
the talks, the government said that public officers, particularly those in the
lower salary scales, stand to benefit from an increase of some four per cent,
in addition to the one per cent offer by the CPO to the PSA.

"This is a result of the
consolidation of the 'Cost of Living Allowance' which existed at the end of
December 2007 with salary at that date," the statement said.

The government also promised to
stick to its commitment to pay retired public officers a pension of TT$3,000
(US$500) per month, saying legislation was being finalised to be brought to
Parliament.

Dookeran said that given the
"current state of the country's finances", it was his
"sincere" wish that the wage negotiations be settled "around the
table, since they would not be settled on the streets".

- CMC