Finance Minister Winston Dookeran is hoping wage negotiations not yet concluded for the 2008 to 2010 bargaining period will be finalised soon.He said the 2011 to 2013 bargaining period had started and a new approach would be required to arrive at mutually acceptable settlements within the economic realities.Dookeran said social dialoguing would be used between the negotiating teams.Public Service negotiations were addressed early in Dookeran's presentation of the People's Partnership $54.6 billion budget package for the 2011-2012 fiscal year on Monday.
Dookeran said negotiations for revised salaries and other terms and conditions of employment for monthly-paid employees in the Public Service, including the T&T Police Service and the Teaching Service; daily-rated workers of the central government; Tobago House of Assembly and municipal corporations for 2008 to 2010/11 began in 2010 and continued against a background of a slowdown in recovery efforts and fiscal and financial uncertainty.He was speaking at the Parliament, Tower D of the Waterfront Complex, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain.Dookeran said: "Notwithstanding these difficulties, settlements have been reached with the associations and unions representing employees in the Civil Service and certain Statutory Authorities, Second Division officers of the Prisons Service and the Sugarcane Feeds Centre."