Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Gov­ern­ment is set­tling out­stand­ing Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowances (CO­LA) and par­i­ty ad­just­ments for Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion work­ers rep­re­sent­ed by the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union (OW­TU), Se­nior Staff As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers and Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion of­fi­cers, with pay­ments start­ing mid-month in­to Ju­ly.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath de­tailed the de­vel­op­ment in a state­ment to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

Padarath said the bulk of the pay­ments will be go­ing to work­ers rep­re­sent­ed in the mat­ter by the OW­TU.

Padarath said the state­ment comes in align­ment with yes­ter­day’s ob­ser­vance of May Day, which was ap­pro­pri­ate for Gov­ern­ment to con­tin­ue act­ing de­ci­sive­ly to re­solve long-stand­ing un­at­tend­ed labour mat­ters.

“For the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1, 2015, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025, thou­sands of work­ers, both ac­tive and in­ac­tive, were af­fect­ed by un­re­solved CO­LA ad­just­ments and com­pen­sa­tion dis­par­i­ties at the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion. Ten years of de­lay and ne­glect un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment,” he added.

“Dur­ing that time, the cost of liv­ing con­tin­ued to rise, yet the mech­a­nisms in­tend­ed to pro­tect work­ers were left stag­nant. Oblig­a­tions ac­cu­mu­lat­ed. Work­ers wait­ed. And the sys­tem failed them.”

Padarath said the UNC Gov­ern­ment moved with ur­gency, pur­pose and re­spect for labour to bring clo­sure to these mat­ters.

De­tail­ing de­liv­ery across all ma­jor bar­gain­ing units and the sums to be paid, Padarath list­ed $16 mil­lion un­der the agree­ment with the OW­TU.

That in­volves retroac­tive CO­LA on ba­sic pay and over­time for in­ac­tive work­ers from Jan­u­ary 1 2015, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025, based on RPI move­ment.

Pay­ments will be made in three equal tranch­es: from May 15, 2026 ($5.33 mil­lion); June 15, 2026 ($5.33 mil­lion) and Ju­ly 15, 2026 (al­so $5.33 mil­lion).

Padarath al­so said $1.5 mil­lion is due un­der the agree­ment with the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion for retroac­tive CO­LA on ba­sis pay and over­time for in­ac­tive Es­tate Po­lice of­fi­cers for the same pe­ri­od.

This will be paid in two tranch­es of $ .75 mil­lion each in June and Ju­ly.

A par­i­ty ad­just­ment re­gard­ing the Se­nior Staff As­so­ci­a­tion agree­ment for ac­tive em­ploy­ees of $5,002.10 has al­so been es­tab­lished.

That was ex­pect­ed to be ef­fec­tive from yes­ter­day, with pay­ments be­gin­ning May 25.

He added that the ad­just­ment will be re­flect­ed as a sep­a­rate line item and forms part of an in­ter­im set­tle­ment, with fur­ther dis­cus­sions to ad­dress retroac­tiv­i­ty and in­te­gra­tion in­to ba­sic salaries.

Padarath, who slammed the PNM’s de­lay in deal­ing with the mat­ters, added, “This Gov­ern­ment has not on­ly ad­dressed the past—we are cor­rect­ing in­equities af­fect­ing cur­rent em­ploy­ees. And in the spir­it of May Day, it sends a clear and pow­er­ful mes­sage: that work­ers mat­ter. Those agree­ments must be ho­n­oured. That this Gov­ern­ment will act.”