Unfortunately, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her Government have consistently ignored the trade union movement and its continuing statements of displeasure with the process of industrial relations, specifically, wage negotiations conducted over the last year. Instead of seeking dialogue with the relevant unions and the labour movement as a whole, preliminary to allowing the unions, the Chief Personnel Officer and the state agencies to reach agreement, the Government thought that the five per cent wage settlement with the Public Services Association (PSA) would become the standard for all union agreements.And notwithstanding the attempts now being made by ministers to resile from that position, it became clear during and after the PSA negotiations-the signal having come from several ministers including the Prime Minister-that the five per cent was the benchmark figure and the Government was intent on imposing it all around.In such a context, new Planning Minister Bhoe Tewarie will have a hard time attempting to convince the labour leaders that the history of the attitude of the Government in this matter is not vital and the unions should therefore just move on and deal with the present adapted position and attitude of the Government.
Recently, the Government announced that it had found $1.5 billion from its budget for the start of the highway extension to Point Fortin, a project which would eventually cost $7.2 billion. That announcement weakens the case of the Government of not being able to afford more than the five per cent.Again unfortunately, it has come to pass once more that it takes matters reaching to a head and the indication of conflict in the streets and talk of a potentially damaging general strike to surface before reasonableness can prevail.But having said all of that in the hope that we learn our lessons from history, it is really encouraging that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has signalled to the labour leaders that her Government is ready for dialogue. To indicate the seriousness of that position, Labour Minister Errol McLeod was assuredly addressing a national interest Thursday when he said that both sides need to come to the table for "thorough-going discussions and negotiations." In another important hint that negotiations will not be forced into a particular dead end, Minister McLeod also noted that "I have not heard anyone talking about five per cent," this statement being made in reaction to the call of the labour leaders for the removal of five per cent from the table before they can commit to engage in meaningful discussions.
But notwithstanding the broad hint from Mr McLeod that it would not be business as usual, Minister Tewarie made an important intervention to say that negotiations on removing the five per cent cap and other points for discussion cannot be done in the public sphere and the labour leaders must be big enough to recognise such a point. They must also demonstrate an attitude of reasonableness in the context of what is in the national interest.One of the really disappointing aspects of the months, years, decades even of dead-end antagonisms between and amongst government, private employers and labour has been the fact that succeeding governments have ignored the possibility of tripartite discussions and broad agreement on the way forward. Back in the 1990s, the Panday government, the labour movement and the private sector made significant progress in developing a tripartite basis for discussion. Indeed, the three partners had put together something of a first draft for discussion on a cooperative effort to solve problems.That initiative was dropped by the Manning administration which succeeded the Panday government.There could be no better moment for the social partners to return to the tripartite forum to achieve broad agreement on the way forward.