JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union (AWU) is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to make good on its mid-year bud­get re­view promise to in­crease their salaries and pay back­pay af­ter set­tling ne­go­ti­a­tions in 2022.

The union rep­re­sents some 1,300 work­ers at the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion.

On June 5, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Par­lia­ment that the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to in­crease the bud­get by near­ly $3 bil­lion to cov­er the in­crease in salaries for over 62,000 work­ers.

The work­ers rep­re­sent­ed sev­en unionised bod­ies who set­tled wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, in­clud­ing the AWU.

She said then: “That Sup­ple­men­tary Bill that will be com­ing is to ask for more mon­ey, $2.93 bil­lion in sup­ple­men­ta­tion to meet the bills of Trinidad and To­ba­go in this fis­cal year. Out of that $2.93 bil­lion that we are ask­ing for, $2.83 bil­lion is re­cur­rent and it will ap­ply to the new wages and salaries that we have been pay­ing. Over 60,000 per­sons are get­ting in­creased salaries, and so we have to find the mon­ey.”

The AWU was one of the first unions to ac­cept a four per cent of­fer by the then for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-led gov­ern­ment for the years 2014 to 2019.

Af­ter set­tling in 2022, the union then ac­cept­ed a five per cent of­fer in April last year.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the union’s New Street, Port-of-Spain head of­fice yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent Michael Pren­tice said the union has been pa­tient for some 16 months, and the AWU was tired of the games.

“It’s wrong. It’s un­just. This is wicked. This is evil. That’s the on­ly way I, as pres­i­dent gen­er­al, could de­scribe the be­hav­iour of peo­ple who have been en­trust­ed with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to deal with the work­ers’ rights. The work­ers have rights. That is their right! They have worked and you’re not pay­ing them.”

Pren­tice said the unions reached out sev­er­al times to the line min­is­ter – Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen – on the mat­ter, how­ev­er they failed to meet with her and Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste due to sched­ul­ing clash­es. He said the min­istry’s re­quest for an ac­tu­al fig­ure owed be­fore dis­burse­ment goes against the norm.

Pren­tice, who de­nied that his me­dia con­fer­ence was po­lit­i­cal­ly slant­ed or his angst was root­ed in po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences, said the nor­mal prac­tice is for the min­istry to re­lease the funds to sat­is­fy the in­creased salaries and then the back­pay can be as­sessed.

When Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Ameen yes­ter­day, she said she was in a meet­ing and could not take the call and asked that she be mes­saged. Af­ter mes­sag­ing her, she did not re­spond up to press time.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne said the cor­po­ra­tion has done all it could to as­sist both the union and the min­istry. Al­leyne said what­ev­er fur­ther steps the union takes will be in the best in­ter­est of the work­ers.

“I think that the union has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to do as it sees fit on be­half of pro­tect­ing the rights of the work­ers and their mem­bers. The coun­cil con­tin­ues to work close­ly with the work­ers, the ad­min­is­tra­tion, and the union to re­solve the is­sue. We just need the al­lo­ca­tion to be giv­en to us by the Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. We heard a full-throat­ed com­mit­ment be­ing giv­en by the min­is­ter in the mid-year re­view, but de­spite the very low and bom­bas­tic com­mit­ment that has been made, we have not re­ceived the ad­di­tion­al al­lo­ca­tion.”

He added that the cor­po­ra­tion sub­mit­ted on three oc­ca­sions the es­ti­mat­ed amount need­ed to sat­is­fy the in­creased salaries but has on­ly re­ceived enough to cov­er salaries for the pre-ne­go­ti­at­ed amount.