A Vol­un­tary Ear­ly Sep­a­ra­tion Plan (VESP) has been of­fered to em­ploy­ees of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) as the com­pa­ny seeks to achieve in­creased vi­a­bil­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy. How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), James Lam­bert, said his union had not ac­cept­ed the plan as yet and would not do so un­til prop­er dis­cus­sions be­tween man­age­ment and the union were held.

"NUGFW, which rep­re­sents the dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers, have not ac­cept­ed. We find the VESP is un­time­ly as ne­go­ti­a­tions for 2008 have not yet been com­plet­ed," he told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day. He said the union re­cent­ly went to the In­dus­tri­al Court to sign a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with re­gards to work­ers' wages. He added: "This VESP is un­time­ly. We have not dis­cussed 2011-2013. We have not met of­fi­cial­ly to dis­cuss this."

Lam­bert said to his knowl­edge WASA need­ed many more dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers and re­it­er­at­ed his call for man­age­ment to meet and dis­cuss how the VESP of­fer would work. Head of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions at WASA, Ellen Lewis, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, said the unions which rep­re­sent­ed WASA work­ers were aware the of­fer would be made.

She said the de­ci­sion was not tak­en be­cause of any fi­nan­cial con­straints but on­ly to op­ti­mise the au­thor­i­ty's per­for­mance. She added the of­fer would be on a vol­un­tary ba­sis "so an em­ploy­ee is not com­pelled to ac­cept." Lewis al­so said the au­thor­i­ty had the right to de­cline ap­pli­ca­tions and ask em­ploy­ees to re­con­sid­er their de­ci­sions.

In a press re­lease to the T&T Guardian she stat­ed:

"In this re­gard, those who ac­cess the pro­gramme will ben­e­fit from the fol­low­ing:

• Lump­sum pay­ment, based on cur­rent salary;

• va­ca­tion leave buy-out;

• en­hanced pen­sion;

• im­me­di­ate pen­sion for life; and

• life skills train­ing."

An­oth­er part states: "These in­ter­ven­tions are aimed at cre­at­ing a plat­form for WASA to achieve vi­a­bil­i­ty and op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy over a five-year pe­ri­od." Work­ers who ac­cept the of­fer al­so will re­ceive as­sis­tance in ar­eas like fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, ca­reer plan­ning, well­ness and self care, at no cost.