President of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions (Fitun) Joseph Remy says he has noted the apology of Finance Minister Colm Imbert but still wants him removed from the National Tripartite Advisory Council (NTAC).
In the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Imbert referred to statements made at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forum two Wednesdays ago about his 0-0-0 wage offer to the public sector unions for the 2017 to 2020 period and statement on the raising the price of gas three times without any riots, statements from which Prime Minister Keith Rowley distanced his government.
Rowley described his most senior minister's statements as lacking poor bedside manner.
However, Remy said they would want to relook their call for Imbert's unreserved apology, since it also included a call for him to be excluded from the National Tripartite Advisory Council (NTAC).
During the debate on the Provisional Collection of Taxes Order in the House on Wednesday, Imbert said his statement may have upset a lot of people and used the opportunity to unreservedly apologise to all.
Asked if the union was satisfied with Imbert's apology, Remy said: "While we would want to express our satisfaction that the minister publicly and in Parliament unreservedly apologised, we have noted it very carefully.
"But we also called for a review of the minister's participation in the NTAC and as such we would still be raising that issue at the next meeting of that council so that we could get some assurance about what would happen in the future. Because it might just be an apology now and then we may have a similar type of issue again and then we would have another apology.
"We don't believe that is how we want to operate." He said when they discussed the issues at the level of NTAC, they would want some level of assurances about a number of things.
"One, in terms of the Government policy relative to wage restraint, the minister's penchant in making ill-advised and ill-founded statements and whether we are going forward in a spirit of trust relative to the tripartite process.
"Once we are satisfied with those undertakings then we would want to relook our call but at this time we maintain a call for him to be excluded from the NTAC process.
"If we accept the apology... but we did not call for the apology alone. We called for the apology and the fact that he should be extricated from he process and we still hold to that position, until we believe we are assured how the thing should go forward in the future," he added.