The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is de­mand­ing a ten per cent wage in­crease for Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) work­ers when ne­go­ti­a­tions re­sume, with Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer warn­ing that the union is pre­pared to protest once the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ends on Thurs­day.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Ogeer said the union would not ac­cept an of­fer be­low ten per cent, ar­gu­ing that work­ers had helped TSTT record what the com­pa­ny has de­scribed as its high­est prof­it in 17 years.

“We are say­ing when we go back around the ta­ble, we are start­ing at ten per cent,” Ogeer said.

“Work­ers de­serve ten per cent. Don’t come with no five, don’t come with no nine, come with ten con­sol­i­da­tion of CO­LA.”

The union said it had pro­posed Sep­tem­ber 14, 16 and 18 as dates to meet with the com­pa­ny but had not yet re­ceived a re­sponse.

Ogeer said TSTT work­ers were still ne­go­ti­at­ing over salaries dat­ing back to 2019, while the com­pa­ny was re­port­ing sig­nif­i­cant prof­its.

“You made prof­its, we work hard for the prof­its, we de­serve parts of the prof­it,” she said.

She al­so ques­tioned what con­tributed to the re­port­ed prof­it, in­clud­ing whether a sur­plus in the pen­sion plan was in­volved, and called on TSTT chair­man Kern Dass to ex­plain how the fig­ure was reached.

Ogeer ac­cused Dass of in­struct­ing the com­pa­ny not to meet with the union.

“The same Kern Dass in­struct­ed the com­pa­ny not to meet with the union,” she said.

Ogeer’s warn­ing over pos­si­ble in­dus­tri­al ac­tion comes as the cur­rent SoE is due to end.

The emer­gency mea­sures had re­strict­ed pub­lic protests, with Le­gal No­tice No 40 of 2026 es­tab­lish­ing 15 pro­hib­it­ed protest lo­ca­tions and a 500-me­tre buffer around them.

Ogeer said the end of the re­stric­tions would give the union greater room to act.

“We are hope­ful come the 17th there will be no more SoE,” she said. “Once the lim­i­ta­tions are re­moved, what is af­ford­ed to the Union and I will leave you with that.”

Union threat­ens to

re­lease com­pa­ny files

Be­yond ne­go­ti­a­tions, Ogeer in­ten­si­fied the CWU’s con­cerns about gov­er­nance at TSTT, claim­ing the union is in pos­ses­sion of a file con­tain­ing in­for­ma­tion about al­leged con­flicts of in­ter­est, ques­tion­able deals and oth­er mat­ters in­volv­ing the com­pa­ny.

She said the same in­for­ma­tion had been pro­vid­ed to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Dass.

Ogeer warned that if ac­tion was not tak­en, the union would take the doc­u­ments to the Op­po­si­tion and the me­dia.

“If ac­tion is not tak­en, I am pre­pared to take the doc­u­ment to the Op­po­si­tion,” she said.

“We will leak it to every news­room,” Ogeer said, adding that the is­sue was “about tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey” as well as “ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy.”

The al­le­ga­tions raised by the union have not been in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied.

Ogeer raised ques­tions about ap­point­ments, pro­cure­ment, po­ten­tial con­flicts of in­ter­est and the con­duct of se­nior of­fi­cials at TSTT while al­so rais­ing al­le­ga­tions of a job of­fer in­volv­ing a me­dia work­er and a po­si­tion at TSTT, say­ing there are qual­i­fied peo­ple with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion who can take up the po­si­tion.

Calls for lead­er­ship changes

Ogeer al­so called di­rect­ly on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to in­ter­vene.

She played an ear­li­er state­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter warn­ing mem­bers of her ad­min­is­tra­tion against treat­ing cit­i­zens with “cal­lous­ness, con­tempt and cor­rup­tion”.

Ogeer said Per­sad-Bisses­sar should now ex­am­ine what is tak­ing place at TSTT.

“Madam Prime Min­is­ter, you need now to take a look and please, I am not bul­ly­ing you and I’m not try­ing to in­tim­i­date you,” she said.

Lat­er, she ap­pealed again: “Take off your glass­es, Madam PM, and look in­to TSTT.”

Ogeer ac­cused TSTT’s lead­er­ship of “wan­ton wastage” while work­ers con­tin­ue to press for out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions to be set­tled.

She al­so called for Dass to be re­moved as chair­man, ac­cus­ing him of fail­ing to prop­er­ly ex­er­cise his fidu­cia­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

Ogeer al­so called for the re­moval of Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary Vivi­ca Para­gas, against whom the union raised sev­er­al al­le­ga­tions and ques­tions con­cern­ing po­ten­tial con­flicts of in­ter­est.

The al­le­ga­tions against Dass, Para­gas and oth­er TSTT of­fi­cials have not been in­de­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fied.

Ogeer said the union’s cam­paign was not dri­ven by per­son­al­i­ties but by con­cerns about the fu­ture of the com­pa­ny, its em­ploy­ees and pub­lic funds.

Ogeer said the CWU would con­tin­ue press­ing the com­pa­ny for an­swers while its mem­bers work to keep TSTT vi­able.