Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is lead­ing a Gov­ern­ment team at to­day's talks with the labour move­ment in a last ditch ef­fort to avert a na­tion­al strike.It takes place at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.Mem­ber unions of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of T&T (Natuc) and the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions and Non-Gov­ern­ment Or­gan­i­sa­tions (Fi­tun) have threat­ened to call a na­tion­al strike at a date yet to be an­nounced, un­less sev­en de­mands are met by the Gov­ern­ment.One of the de­mands is the lift­ing of a five per cent cap on wage in­creas­es pro­posed by the Gov­ern­ment.They were adamant there would be no progress un­less the cap was lift­ed.Per­sad-Bisses­sar team is ex­pect­ed to in­clude Plan­ning and the Econ­o­my Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie and Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod.

For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan said yes­ter­day the Gov­ern­ment was ex­pect­ing the closed-door meet­ing to take place in "an at­mos­phere of good­will."He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was go­ing with "an open mind." He added the two ma­jor con­cerns at the heart of the de­lib­er­a­tions would be the eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty of the coun­try and its na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty."Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to en­sure that there is in­dus­tri­al peace in T&T to en­sure the rights of work­ers to ne­go­ti­ate in the free col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process process is re­spect­ed," Ram­bachan told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

Re­spond­ing to claims by pres­i­dent gen­er­al of Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) An­cel Ro­get, that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment had be­trayed the labour move­ment, Ram­bachan said while the labour move­ment was a part of the PP Gov­ern­ment, the ad­min­is­tra­tion rep­re­sent­ed all stake­hold­ers in the coun­try. "There will not be progress in T&T un­less every­one is com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment of the en­tire na­tion," he in­sist­ed.Tewarie said last week the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to col­lab­o­ra­tion and not con­tention.