Ali­cia Llanos

A to­tal of 14 trade unions have joined in sol­i­dar­i­ty to protest the one per cent wage in­crease be­ing of­fered to pub­lic ser­vants. The an­nounce­ment was made yes­ter­day, dur­ing a joint news con­fer­ence held at the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) head­quar­ters, Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain. The unions pledged their sup­port in the on­go­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for pub­lic ser­vants.

Ad­dress­ing the uni­ty of the trade unions, Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union (BIG­WU) pres­i­dent Vin­cent Cabr­era said: "Work­ers in T&T are de­mand­ing a unit­ed labour move­ment. "The trade union move­ment is sim­ply not com­ing to­geth­er to cause trou­ble," he added. Cabr­era said the pri­ma­ry rea­son­ing for the uni­ty among trade unions was that like the PSA they, too, were go­ing to be faced with the one per cent wage in­crease pro­pos­al be­ing put for­ward by the Gov­ern­ment.

He said work­ers in the pri­vate sec­tor might al­so face the same pro­pos­al if em­ploy­ers fol­lowed the ex­am­ple of the Gov­ern­ment. "We have a gen­uine sit­u­a­tion here. All work­ers are af­fect­ed by the one per cent in­crease," Cabr­era said. PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke said de­spite re­ports of con­flict, the labour move­ment was "stronger to­day than we ever have been be­fore." Duke crit­i­cised Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an for be­ing ab­sent and silent dur­ing the en­tire ne­go­ti­a­tion process, adding that he had been "cu­ri­ous­ly ab­sent" from all ne­go­ti­a­tion talks with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO). "Our cry this morn­ing is for the Fi­nance Min­is­ter, wher­ev­er he is, to make haste in at­tend­ing to the cries of all mem­bers of the unions rep­re­sent­ed here to­day," Duke said.

"We are hop­ing that we will meet with him to bet­ter un­der­stand the chal­lenges fac­ing him, and he like­wise must un­der­stand the chal­lenges fac­ing all work­ers in T&T." Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) An­cel Ro­get al­so crit­i­cised Dook­er­an, say­ing: "We are con­vinced the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has his eco­nom­ics wrong." Ro­get said this was ev­i­dent with the one per cent wage in­crease of­fered to the PSA. He said it was note­wor­thy to point out that in the midst of ne­go­ti­a­tions, the Cen­tral Bank had re­leased fig­ures show­ing the in­fla­tion rate drop­ping from 16.2 per cent to 13.2 per cent. He said these fig­ures were not "square" with what the pub­lic was meet­ing at gro­ceries where pur­chas­ing pow­er of the dol­lar had re­duced.

Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers' (NUGFW) sec­ond vice- pres­i­dent Clifton Simp­son joined with Duke and Ro­get in ques­tion­ing the Cen­tral Bank's num­bers. "It is more than strange, that on more than one oc­ca­sion over the past few years it is on­ly when a cer­tain group of peo­ple ap­ply pres­sure to the Cen­tral Bank, that they re­lease some sort of fig­ure," Simp­son said. He said as soon as econ­o­mists be­gan pub­licly say­ing union ne­go­ti­a­tions should be set­tled in re­la­tion to in­fla­tion, the Cen­tral Bank an­nounced in­fla­tion had dropped from 16.2 per cent to 13.2 per cent. The 14 unions present at yes­ter­day's con­fer­ence called on their mem­bers to join in PSA's Black­out Tues­day march–to­mor­row. Cabr­era said: "We are say­ing to work­ers if you get up Tues­day morn­ing and you have any prob­lems com­ing to work, stay home and see about your chil­dren.

"Our com­rades are in a strug­gle...Our com­rades in the pub­lic sec­tor have a day of strug­gle on Tues­day," he said. "Work­ers through out Trinidad and To­ba­go have a right to sup­port that strug­gle." Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union (CWU) Joseph Re­my al­so called on all com­mu­ni­ca­tions work­ers to en­sure a "com­mu­ni­ca­tions black­out" to­mor­row and to join with pub­lic ser­vants on the streets of Port-of-Spain.

Unions present at yes­ter­day's meet­ing:

�2 Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion;

�2 Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union;

�2 Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union;

�2 Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union;

�2 Med­ical Pro­fes­sion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T;

�2 Steel Work­ers' Union;

�2 T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion;

�2 Gov­ern­ment, In­dus­tri­al and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union;

�2 Na­tion­al Work­ers' Union;

�2 Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers;

�2 Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers' Union;

�2 Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion;

�2 Pris­ons Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion; and

�2 Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion.