Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) and the Na­tion­al Union of Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers Union (NUGFW) have ex­pressed their dis­sat­is­fac­tion at the 2024 Bud­get.

At a press con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, NUGFW Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al James Lam­bert, who rep­re­sents the largest union for dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers, said the union had ex­pect­ed to see more favourable pro­vi­sions.

One of the pri­ma­ry con­cerns raised by Lam­bert was the in­crease in the re­tire­ment age. He ar­gued that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert should have es­tab­lished a con­trib­u­to­ry pen­sion plan specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored for dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers.

Cur­rent­ly, dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers are re­quired to work up to age 60 and his union sup­ports the in­crease in the re­tire­ment as it would as­sist his mem­bers

Lam­bert said in 1991, dur­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, there was an agree­ment to ad­just the re­tire­ment age for dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers with the in­ten­tion of pro­vid­ing them with a pen­sion. How­ev­er, more than two decades lat­er, those work­ers are still wait­ing for the promised pen­sion ben­e­fits to ma­te­ri­al­ize.

“In Au­gust 2022, we re­ceived a let­ter from the Fi­nance Min­is­ter’s Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, in­di­cat­ing the for­ma­tion of a com­mit­tee named the Fa­cil­i­tates and Im­ple­men­ta­tion Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. We had ap­prox­i­mate­ly four meet­ings. I am a mem­ber of that com­mit­tee, and Mr.Streete is an­oth­er mem­ber. The min­istry sent rep­re­sen­ta­tives, along with oth­er unions and stake­hold­ers, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fice, and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties were al­so part of the com­mit­tee. It is a very large com­mit­tee, and in the bud­get speech for 2023, not one word was men­tioned,” Lam­bert said.

He point­ed out that the NUGFW rep­re­sents work­ers in cen­tral and lo­cal gov­ern­ment as well as the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly who have been af­fect­ed by the lack of im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“You’re not even ask­ing what has hap­pened to what was in the pre­vi­ous two bud­gets. We didn’t hear any­thing, and noth­ing has come in­to fruition, so we are still here, and they owe that to us be­cause they have signed on the prin­ci­ple. All the doc­u­ments are there and they have been giv­en to them in the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he said.

NATUC Pres­i­dent Michael Anisette was crit­i­cal of what he de­scribed as de­cep­tive tac­tics aimed at en­tic­ing work­ers. He said the an­nounce­ment of a bil­lion-dol­lar pay­ment for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers is mere­ly a strate­gic ma­noeu­vre. He said de­spite the siz­able fi­nan­cial al­lo­ca­tion, it is not the work­ers who are ben­e­fit­ing from this ini­tia­tive.

“I want you all to un­der­stand that and not be fooled by the fact that it’s a bil­lion dol­lars for back pay for Christ­mas. I ask a ques­tion, why for Christ­mas? We don’t of­ten ask our­selves these ques­tions. What is the rea­son for giv­ing that mon­ey for Christ­mas? Do you know the psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fect of that? Who will ben­e­fit when you pay that mon­ey for Christ­mas? We should think about it, but we have a cri­sis,” he said.

The NUGFW is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue their le­gal ac­tion at the In­dus­tri­al Court aver wages and oth­er mat­ters in their col­lec­tive agree­ment.