KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al Christo­pher Streete says work­ers who have been “starved” of wage in­creas­es since 2013 are ec­sta­t­ic know­ing that mon­ey is fi­nal­ly in the pipeline for them.

His com­ments come days af­ter Cab­i­net rat­i­fied the union’s 10 per cent wage agree­ment with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO), clear­ing a ma­jor hur­dle to­wards im­ple­ment­ing new salary rates for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 dai­ly-rat­ed work­ers.

Streete said work­ers had wait­ed more than a decade for an in­crease and were now look­ing for­ward to re­ceiv­ing what was owed to them.

“Work­ers who have been starved, and I use the word de­lib­er­ate­ly, of any kind of in­crease in wages since 2013 must be com­plete­ly ec­sta­t­ic that they know that some­thing is in the pipeline for them. They are look­ing for­ward, they have planned and so on for it, so we an­tic­i­pate that it will be paid prompt­ly, as was promised,” Streete said.

Asked whether there was frus­tra­tion among work­ers over the out­stand­ing back­pay, Streete ad­mit­ted they were anx­ious to re­ceive the mon­ey but said they were hold­ing on to the as­sur­ance that half would be paid, while dis­cus­sions would con­tin­ue on when the re­main­ing half would be set­tled.

“Not hav­ing re­ceived any­thing, of course, peo­ple are anx­ious that they want to get some­thing as soon as pos­si­ble,” he said.

Streete said the union ex­pects the pay­ment by De­cem­ber and stressed that the com­mit­ment was not mere­ly a ver­bal promise from the Gov­ern­ment.

“By De­cem­ber, with­in the fi­nan­cial year. And we have that in writ­ing. That is not a promise, a ver­bal promise. We have that in writ­ten form, based on our sign­ing of the last col­lec­tive agree­ment. It is there,” he said.

Ear­li­er this week, CPO Dr Daryl Din­di­al con­firmed that Cab­i­net had rat­i­fied the NUGFW agree­ment, de­scrib­ing Cab­i­net ap­proval as the “most im­por­tant” step to­wards im­ple­ment­ing the new rates.

Din­di­al said in­creased salaries could be­gin ap­pear­ing in work­ers’ pay as ear­ly as Sep­tem­ber, al­though fur­ther ad­min­is­tra­tive steps must first be com­plet­ed.

Fol­low­ing Cab­i­net’s rat­i­fi­ca­tion, the agree­ment must go to the Min­istry of Labour for a pro­ce­dur­al non-ob­jec­tion, af­ter which the CPO will is­sue in­struc­tions for the new rates to be im­ple­ment­ed.

The NUGFW and CPO signed the agree­ment in April, cov­er­ing two bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods be­tween 2014 and 2019.

The agree­ment is ex­pect­ed to cost the State ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2 bil­lion in ar­rears and add an­oth­er $252 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly to the pub­lic-sec­tor wage bill.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 per cent of the ar­rears, val­ued at around $1 bil­lion, is to be paid in cash, while $1.56 bil­lion will be set­tled through non-cash arrange­ments.

Din­di­al pre­vi­ous­ly con­firmed that the 40 per cent cash com­po­nent would be paid over two fis­cal years.

Re­spond­ing to the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union’s (CWU) call for trade unions to move away from po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions and fo­cus on the fight for work­ers, Streete said while the NUGFW stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er unions, each or­gan­i­sa­tion has its own cul­ture and ap­proach to deal­ing with is­sues af­fect­ing its mem­ber­ship.

He said the labour move­ment should not be ex­pect­ed to hold a uni­form po­si­tion on every is­sue.

“One thing we must re­mem­ber is that while we are all trade unions, we have our own phi­los­o­phy with­in the trade union that is, in the main, guid­ed by the mem­bers. I don’t ex­pect every trade union to have the same po­si­tion on every­thing. You know, it de­pends on where you stand. Trade unions are in sol­i­dar­i­ty with each oth­er. And if one calls on the next for what­ev­er sup­port, I know it will be forth­com­ing,” Streete said.

TTUTA claims it is be­ing side­lined

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe says he be­lieves the union is be­ing side­lined be­cause of its de­ci­sion to re­main non-par­ti­san.

He claimed he has ob­served oth­er unions aligned with par­tic­u­lar po­lit­i­cal par­ties be­ing favoured over oth­ers.

“Be­cause cer­tain unions would have tak­en the po­si­tion that we are non-par­ti­san, our in­ter­est is the in­ter­est of our work­ers and our mem­bers, it would seem as if we are be­ing put at the back of the class. All that you would have fought for, all that you would have signed to and agreed to, you’re wait­ing and there’s no def­i­nite time­line giv­en, no com­mu­ni­ca­tion at all. And then, you’re see­ing oth­er per­sons who would have aligned them­selves with spe­cif­ic po­lit­i­cal par­ties be­ing able to jump the line,” Ashe said.

He stressed that TTUTA had no is­sue with oth­er unions re­ceiv­ing im­proved ben­e­fits for their mem­bers.

“Now bear in mind TTUTA has no prob­lem with any union re­ceiv­ing any­thing bet­ter for its mem­ber­ship. We ap­plaud them and we will be glad for them. How­ev­er, there should be some clear and trans­par­ent and ob­jec­tive way of do­ing this. Not to say that I’m giv­ing to my friend…” he said.

Ashe al­so called for greater po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty, say­ing po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences should not turn or­gan­i­sa­tions or in­di­vid­u­als in­to en­e­mies.

“Po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty is some­thing that I have al­ways said I wish that our coun­try could come to that re­al­i­sa­tion at some point in time. We don’t have to be en­e­mies. You might be my po­lit­i­cal op­po­nent but you’re not my en­e­my. We are work­ing for the com­mon good and the com­mon good is Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.