In a sur­pris­ing move, the Prime Min­is­ter de­clared dur­ing a walk­a­bout on Fri­day that the threat of in­dus­tri­al ac­tion by po­lice of­fi­cers will be met firm­ly by her Gov­ern­ment. "We shall en­force the law," Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "The Gov­ern­ment has not tak­en light­ly the threat that some mem­bers of the Po­lice Ser­vice may fail to car­ry out their du­ties to pro­tect the lives of in­no­cent men, women and chil­dren." De­clar­ing the pro­posed "day of rest and re­flec­tion" on Mon­day "a wan­ton act of aban­don­ment and dere­lic­tion of du­ty," the Prime Min­is­ter promised "an ap­pro­pri­ate and mea­sured re­sponse." First up? The planned de­ploy­ment of De­fence Force per­son­nel on Mon­day "in sup­port" of those of­fi­cers who show up for work.

More tough talk, it might well be ar­gued, is the last thing that the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate needs to­day. That ap­proach has been for­mal­ly dis­avowed by the Gov­ern­ment's own tele­vi­sion ad­ver­tis­ing, which the­atri­cal­ly pro­motes di­a­logue over threats as the pre­ferred means of reach­ing mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial ac­com­mo­da­tion in con­tentious ne­go­ti­a­tions. To be clear, the Po­lice Force is an es­sen­tial ser­vice, and threats of thin­ly veiled in­dus­tri­al ac­tion are whol­ly out of place among of­fi­cers of the Po­lice Ser­vice who have un­der­tak­en a mis­sion to pro­tect and serve with pride. Po­lice of­fi­cers tempt­ed to con­sid­er tak­ing a day off on Mon­day, harm­less for an in­di­vid­ual, but po­ten­tial­ly dis­as­trous in the ag­gre­gate, should pause to con­sid­er and ac­knowl­edge their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the coun­try, to their fam­i­lies and friends, and the of­fice they have cho­sen to hold.

Cit­i­zens frus­trat­ed with an un­sat­is­fac­to­ry po­lice re­sponse to crime are un­like­ly to show much in­cli­na­tion to sup­port an in­for­mal­ly de­clared, if metaphor­i­cal­ly couched, with­draw­al of a gen­er­al­ly un­der­whelm­ing ser­vice. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's warn­ing to the Po­lice Ser­vice earned a swift re­buke from Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Sgt Anand Rame­sar, who re­spond­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter had no pow­er to in­sti­tute dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against any of­fi­cer who en­gages in "rest" on Mon­day. Po­lice of­fi­cers should not be con­sid­er­ing in­dus­tri­al ac­tion as their first op­tion in the wage ne­go­ti­a­tions cur­rent­ly un­der way. The gov­ern­ment, for its part, should have been more proac­tive in ex­plain­ing the specifics of the wage of­fer to its work­force in the Po­lice Ser­vice if Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy's plea to of­fi­cers holds up to scruti­ny.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Sandy has claimed that some pack­ages in the ne­go­ti­a­tion in­clude in­creas­es of up to 26 per cent and if this hasn't been clear­ly ex­plained to po­lice of­fi­cers by now, the Gov­ern­ment and its ne­go­ti­at­ing team have on­ly them­selves to blame for the lapse. In hold­ing the line on five per cent as a goal for in­creas­es, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Win­ston Dook­er­an have re­peat­ed­ly point­ed to the fragili­ty of the econ­o­my and the need to ne­go­ti­ate with fi­nan­cial sta­bil­i­ty in mind. Such ar­gu­ments have proven to be quite vague, and pub­lic sec­tor work­ers fac­ing ris­ing costs of liv­ing have not been re­cep­tive to the line of rea­son­ing of­fered by the Gov­ern­ment.

In­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ne­go­ti­a­tions can on­ly pro­ceed on the ba­sis of good faith and such dis­cus­sions are re­in­forced by clar­i­ty, hon­esty and a demon­strat­ed in­ter­est in the good­will of all sit­ting at the ta­ble. In its suc­cess­ful ne­go­ti­a­tions with the PSA, the Gov­ern­ment put enough on the ta­ble in its dis­cus­sions that the union signed off on a pack­age that in­clud­ed a five per cent in­crease in its suite of ben­e­fits. That agree­ment has in­censed oth­er unions, who have cho­sen to make the five per cent in­crease a stick­ing point and the fail­ure of the Gov­ern­ment to move the dis­cus­sion be­yond that is­sue means that its ne­go­ti­a­tion team must re­think its strat­e­gy and re­fine its com­mu­ni­ca­tions to en­sure that all the ben­e­fits it is will­ing to bring to wage dis­cus­sions are clear­ly un­der­stood and ap­pre­ci­at­ed.