Rapheal John-Lall

Ian Mac­Don­ald, CEO of Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and Carib Brew­ery Lim­it­ed, said he con­sid­ers the set­tle­ment of wage ne­go­ti­a­tions to be an im­por­tant in­vest­ment for the com­pa­ny, even in a time of eco­nom­ic down­turn.

"It is no se­cret that the econ­o­my is dif­fi­cult in T&T so it is im­por­tant for us to forge part­ner­ships with the trade union and work to­geth­er to en­sure the vi­a­bil­i­ty of our or­gan­i­sa­tion and our em­ploy­ees are among those go­ing for­ward," he said at the sign­ing new col­lec­tive agree­ments be­tween the com­pa­ny and the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) at Carib's head of­fice in Champs Fleurs yes­ter­day.

Rough­ly 1,000 work­ers will ben­e­fit from the agree­ment which cov­ers sev­er­al bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods from 2011 to 2019.

While he could not give the ex­act fig­ure on how much the set­tle­ment would cost Carib, Mac­Don­ald said it was a sig­nif­i­cant. He said retroac­tive wages to the work­ers should be set­tled by the end of the month.

"It is a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment but it is an in­vest­ment for the fu­ture," he said, adding that keep­ing em­ploy­ees hap­py and com­mit­ted is of para­mount im­por­tance to the com­pa­ny.

"There are chal­leng­ing times but in part­ner­ship with our em­ploy­ees and the union go­ing for­ward we have a unit­ed Carib fam­i­ly and we are all fight­ing for the same thing," Mac Don­ald said.

He said like the rest of coun­try, the com­pa­ny is af­fect­ed by high­er tax­es .

"Every­one's im­pact­ed, as peo­ple have less dis­pos­able in­come and it is a chal­leng­ing en­vi­ron­ment to­day, so it is im­por­tant to keep the fight out there and not on this com­pound. Our pack­aged goods mar­ket has been af­fect­ed by the econ­o­my," he said.

As a re­sult of the set­tle­ment be­tween the com­pa­ny and the union, for the pe­ri­od 2013 to 2016, Carib will with­draw its ap­peal of a judg­ment award­ed by the In­dus­tri­al Court for a 16 per cent in­crease.

In ad­di­tion, the com­pa­ny will ho­n­our the judg­ment giv­en to the month­ly paid bar­gain­ing unit for the pe­ri­od 2011 to 2015 for a 13 per cent in­crease.

The par­ties have bi­lat­er­al­ly agreed to a 13 per cent in­crease for the week­ly paid bar­gain­ing unit and the week­ly and month­ly paid bar­gain­ing units have set­tled at six per cent for the 2016 to 2019 pe­ri­od.