TSTT has set­tled ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers' Union (CWU) for its se­nior staff bar­gain­ing unit cov­er­ing the pe­ri­od 2003 to 2007. The set­tle­ment came af­ter ten months of bi-lat­er­al talks fol­lowed by three months of con­cil­i­a­tion meet­ings with the CWU, fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the Min­istry of Labour. The agree­ment pro­vides for a 23.75 per cent salary in­crease over the five-year pe­ri­od, of which 2003 to 2005 has al­ready been paid. The in­crease was in align­ment with the pre­vi­ous set­tle­ment hand­ed down by the In­dus­tri­al Court in De­cem­ber 2010 for TSTT's ju­nior staff.

The agree­ment is al­most iden­ti­cal to the of­fer TSTT placed on the ta­ble a year ago when the com­pa­ny be­gan se­nior staff ne­go­ti­a­tions with the CWU. Then, the CWU was seek­ing a 27.75 per cent in­crease for the five years, of which 16 per cent was for the pe­ri­od 2006 to 2007, while the com­pa­ny of­fered 12 per cent.

In a state­ment, the com­pa­ny said it was pleased to "bring clo­sure to this chap­ter of the ne­go­ti­a­tions". "In the con­text of the cur­rent eco­nom­ic and com­pet­i­tive chal­lenges, had the CWU been more re­al­is­tic in its de­mands, this agree­ment could have been com­plet­ed a year ago with the last year spent dis­cussing the cur­rent ne­go­ti­at­ing pe­ri­od which is still out­stand­ing."

While this agree­ment has been signed, TSTT and CWU are al­ready four years be­hind on an agree­ment for the cur­rent pe­ri­od, and the com­pa­ny said it would like to "move post-haste to have this mat­ter ad­dressed so our staff can be work­ing for cur­rent salaries and the or­gan­i­sa­tion can get a full sense of its fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions." Edghill Mes­si­ah, ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent hu­man re­sources and cus­tomer care, said TSTT was grate­ful to the Min­istry of Labour for act­ing on the com­pa­ny's re­quest for con­cil­i­a­tion talks.