Yvonne Ba­boolal

Tourism Min­is­ter Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith said he ex­pect­ed to­day's talks be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the trade union move­ment to be fruit­ful.He made the com­ment yes­ter­day in re­sponse to ques­tions from the T&T Guardian af­ter he held a "suc­cess­ful" two-day dis­cus­sion with the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) at his Tow­er C of­fice at the Port-of-Spain Wa­ter­front yes­ter­day. The talks cen­tered on sev­er­al in­dus­tri­al re­la­tion is­sues af­fect­ing life­guards and main­te­nance work­ers who are em­ployed with the Tourism Min­istry. NUGFW's first deputy pres­i­dent gen­er­al Christo­pher Streete said: "We can claim we have suc­ceed­ed in rep­re­sent­ing work­ers in the two-day dis­cus­sions."Not­ing that Grif­fith chaired the meet­ing in a very im­par­tial man­ner, he added: "Where there is a will, there is a way. I ex­tend this to the wider in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate in the coun­try."Streete said he would rep­re­sent NUGFW in the labour del­e­ga­tion meet­ing the PM to­day.

Streete said the union's pres­i­dent gen­er­al, James Lam­bert, a mem­ber of the board of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, is at­tend­ing a labour con­fer­ence in Ja­maica. Grif­fith said he could not pre­dict the out­come of to­day's talks be­tween the PM and the labour move­ment but ex­pect­ed it to be open and free. "I an­tic­i­pate it to be fruit­ful," he said. Grif­fith said it was the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment's de­sire to serve the peo­ple and if labour had a role to play they (the Gov­ern­ment) would sup­port it as far as pos­si­ble. Streete said he was con­fi­dent the talks to­day be­tween the PM and labour would be re­solved in the short­est pos­si­ble time. He added: "I know good sense will pre­vail. I don't think any one of us will al­low the talks to de­te­ri­o­rate to the detri­ment of the coun­try.

"There may not be a na­tion­al shut­down but we will con­tin­ue to do our work. Labour has a role to play and the union has a role to play." Streete said since Jan­u­ary 2007 pub­lic ser­vants had not got­ten a wage in­crease.He added: "Look at the cost of liv­ing. It has gone through the roof and work­ers' in­comes have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed by 34 per cent. We are not ask­ing for a 34 per cent wage in­crease but we are not ac­cept­ing a five per cent wage cap.