At a sitting Thursday, the Industrial court came to the conclusion that more than 2,800 employees of the wholly state-owned utility, T&TEC, should be granted a nine per cent salary increase for the period January 2009 to December 2011. In arriving at that determination, the judges of the Industrial Court took into consideration the utility's financial state, the economic conditions in the country and their assessment of what would be fair and just for the workers.
The Industrial Court's thinking on the matter of the wage increase for most of the employees of the utility was conveyed to the public by the president general of the Oilfields Workers Trade Union, Ancel Roget, in an interview shortly after the determination by the court.
A clearly elated Roget described the decision of the Industrial Court as "fair and just." Such a description of a decision of the Industrial Court by Mr Roget is particularly noteworthy because his union also represents workers at wholly state-owned Petrotrin, which produces and refines oil. After issuing a strike notice to Petrotrin in February, Mr Roget accepted a nine per cent wage increase for the oil company's workers on Carnival Saturday.
Mr Roget also represents workers at Trinidad Cement Ltd where a crippling strike has stymied local cement production for more than six weeks. Given the fact that the unionist accepted a nine per cent wage increase for the Petrotrin workers and he described the nine per cent wage decision by the Industrial Court relating to T&TEC workers as "fair and just," it seems clear that Mr Roget would be prepared to accept the same offer for TCL workers-notwithstanding his perfectly correct statement about not wanting to prejudice the negotiations between the union and the company.
This turn of events places the onus on the management of the cement company to make a public statement on whether nine per cent would be an acceptable offer for TCL to make to the union. And if nine per cent is not acceptable, TCL owes it to its employees, its shareholders and its customers to say why it is not. If TCL's financial state does not allow the company to offer its workers a nine per cent wage increase at this time, it must say so unequivocally.
Given the fact that TCL is insolvent, is on the verge of being declared bankrupt and is about to report its second straight multi-million annual loss, such a statement should be easy for the company to make. But TCL must also give workers the signal that when the demand for cement improves, and with it the fortunes of the company, the workers will be remembered.
In terms of its strategic communication, TCL made a mistake in not making it clear to the workers that it simply could not afford to pay increased salaries at this time, given the desperate financial state it has found itself. For the sake of the construction sector, which has been hit with cement shortages and a 30 per cent increase on average in the price of the commodity, it is hoped that the cement company has learnt that honesty is most times the best policy.
