Combined with the threat from the rest of the trade union movement to call a general strike, the promise from the president of the Police Service Social and Welfare Association, Sgt Anand Ramesar, to join the movement by calling out police officers comes close to qualifying as an act of sedition. Moreover, for Sgt Ramesar and his executive to be talking about the officers staying away from their posts for five days is threatening to open the doors to anarchy-especially given the frightening crime scourge that grips the country. The threat of a five-day police sickout is completely unacceptable-even as a means of simply attempting to frighten the Government into negotiating for wages higher than its five per cent salary cap. And someone should tell the president and other officers of the association that they are law enforcers and, notwithstanding whatever contentions they may have with their employers, they cannot open the door to lawlessness.
So that threatening to leave the population open to every kind of lawless wind that would blow through the land with police officers off the job for five days reneges on the police pledge to "protect and serve."
Undoubtedly, police officers have the right to negotiate for, even demand, what they would consider to be decent salaries and conditions of work. But they have neither the right nor the moral authority to leave the country exposed to every criminal whim that would surely overtake those who have devoted their lives to lawlessness. The police association, like the rest of the trade union movement, has categorically rejected the Government's five per cent wage offer. But it cannot now relinquish its responsibility for protecting the safety of every citizen here. So what the executive of the second division officers association must do is sit down around the negotiating table with the Chief Personnel Officer to work towards reaching a just settlement.
At the same time, and we have made this point previously in this space, the Government has now put itself in a position from which it will be forced to eat crow and retreat from. It cannot be acceptable for the Government to set down in stone its five per cent salary offer. That too makes nonsense of the negotiating procedure. Climbing down is therefore a requirement of both sides. The trade unions and the Government cannot continue to stand on opposite sides of the room and give lip service to the negotiating process while refusing to engage in the traditional give-and-take across the table. Now is the time for "gambage talk" and grand charge to recede into the background with tough but sensible action on both sides to preserve the peace. Similarly, both Government and the trade union movement, inclusive of the Public Services Association (PSA) which has already settled for the five per cent, must be aware that this economy cannot survive prolonged work stoppages which would seriously curtail production of goods and services.
Unfortunately, the Government is going to find it hard to exit from the five per cent position it took with the PSA while moving the bar up for the rest of the public and state sectors. Nonetheless, the Finance Minister has been talking about the economy reaching a point of stability with green shoots emerging from the dry ground. For labour and Government to scuttle the possibility of long-term renewed growth taking root would be highly irresponsible. Prime ministerial intervention to give direction to peace instead of war is needed and Kamla Persad-Bissessar must surely understand the importance of her signalling to the unions and giving direction to her ministers that peaceful, even if tough, negotiations must prevail.