Charles Kong Soo

Dis­grun­tled gen­er­al work­ers of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies' St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus yes­ter­day con­tin­ued their protest ac­tion for a sec­ond day, ratch­et­ing up their demon­stra­tion by storm­ing sev­er­al cam­pus build­ings and dis­rupt­ing class­es.The are clam­our­ing for a high­er than five per cent salary in­crease.The work­ers be­gan as­sem­bling on the cam­pus from 10 am yes­ter­day and in­vad­ed sev­er­al build­ings, such as the main li­brary and ad­mis­sions of­fice, around 11 pm to 1 pm.

The large group of singing and chant­i­ng work­ers oc­cu­pied the four floors of the li­brary and then the ad­mis­sions of­fice.As they board­ed more build­ings they ex­hort­ed their few col­leagues who were work­ing to join them in their bois­ter­ous demon­stra­tion.They re­grouped around 2 pm and by that time there were few staff mem­bers on du­ty and the protest ac­tion wound down.

When the T&T Guardian con­tact­ed the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU), which rep­re­sents the work­ers, its vice pres­i­dent Ted­dy Sta­ple­ton said:"We are do­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions on be­half of the ad­min­stra­tion, tech­ni­cal and dai­ly paid staff for the pe­ri­od 2008 to 2010 and the agree­ment has ex­pired."We are at the mo­ment be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court.

"UWI is of­fer­ing five per cent which was of­fered at the bi-lat­er­al lev­el at the Min­istry of Labour and they per­sist­ed with this fig­ure."At the In­dus­tri­al Court, UWI in­di­cat­ed to the court that it want­ed two weeks to talk with the CPO." Sta­ple­ton said the two weeks have since ex­pired and the uni­ver­si­ty had not giv­en the union its fi­nal de­ci­sion."All they're telling us is that they sent the pro­pos­al to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance," he said.