Charles Kong Soo

The Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) has re­ject­ed the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer's (CPO) five per cent of­fer to pub­lic ser­vants be­cause it was pre­sent­ed in a "dic­ta­to­r­i­al" way and the man­ner in which it was done was "un­ac­cept­able" to mem­bers. The state­ment came from the union's pres­i­dent, James Lam­bert at a news con­fer­ence at the union's of­fices at Farm Road, St Joseph on Thurs­day last. "Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we could not have ac­cept­ed the five per cent that was of­fered by CPO, Stephanie Lewis be­cause we re­alised that it was of­fered in such a dic­ta­to­r­i­al way and the man­ner in which it was of­fered was un­ac­cept­able," Lam­bert said, in drum­ming up sup­port ahead of the union's elec­tions to­day. He said NUGFW sought a wage in­crease of 16 per cent from the CPO. It was re­duced to 12 per cent in the last ne­go­ti­a­tion but the CPO was not budg­ing from the five per cent of­fer.

Lam­bert said that the CPO de­cid­ed to of­fer union mem­bers a "pack­age" and they have made it abun­dant­ly clear that the pack­age will not be ac­cept­ed and will be re­ject­ed out­right in their ne­go­ti­a­tions for all the dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He said that a new Bud­get had been passed for the 2012 fis­cal year and now stood at $64.6 mil­lion but the Gov­ern­ment want­ed to of­fer the work­ers who have to im­ple­ment and ex­e­cute the poli­cies of Gov­ern­ment, five per cent. He said NUGFW was not ac­cept­ing that pro­pos­al when in­fla­tion and the cost of liv­ing have es­ca­lat­ed be­yond pro­por­tion in the pe­ri­od be­tween 2007 and the present. "The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has in­di­cat­ed, quite clear­ly to the coun­try con­cern­ing the econ­o­my, that since we are get­ting sta­bilised the skies have start­ed to be blue," Lam­bert said.

"We're not against de­vel­op­ment. Any gov­ern­ment that is in pow­er has to de­vel­op the coun­try but how are you go­ing to do that; by de­vel­op­ing build­ings and roads and every­thing else and the peo­ple of the coun­try who have to ex­e­cute and im­ple­ment the poli­cies are suf­fer­ing?" "We are say­ing that the Gov­ern­ment of the day has to come much bet­ter than what they have of­fered and we're not go­ing to ac­cept that whether from the Prime Min­is­ter or any min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment to in­di­cate to the ne­go­ti­a­tion team what it should be." He said the NUGFW found it very strange that while mil­lions of dol­lars were be­ing giv­en out in con­tracts and sev­er­al projects, the or­gan­ised labour force was giv­en on­ly five per cent.