Shane Su­perville

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), act­ing ASP Gideon Dick­son, has called on the in­com­ing UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion to ho­n­our its cam­paign promise of a wage in­crease for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers.

Speak­ing af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion, Dick­son re­mind­ed the new gov­ern­ment that salary ne­go­ti­a­tions re­main a top pri­or­i­ty for the as­so­ci­a­tion. “Im­me­di­ate­ly off the cuff, the is­sue of salary ne­go­ti­a­tions and the promis­es made by those who are now as­cend­ing to of­fice, it was com­mu­ni­cat­ed, so we look for­ward to meet­ing to en­gage on be­half of our mem­ber­ship,” he said.

Dur­ing a UNC meet­ing at North East­ern Col­lege in San­gre Grande on March 29, PSA pres­i­dent gen­er­al Fe­l­isha Thomas said ne­go­ti­a­tions would be­gin at “no less” than 10 per cent. How­ev­er, then Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul warned the pledge could desta­bilise the econ­o­my and cost tax­pay­ers bil­lions.

De­spite the con­cerns, Dick­son said of­fi­cers stand ready to work with those in au­thor­i­ty but stressed the im­por­tance of en­gage­ment on the mat­ter.

He added that the as­so­ci­a­tion al­so looks for­ward to hear­ing new ideas aimed at im­prov­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy of the po­lice ser­vice.

Dick­son ex­tend­ed thanks to out­go­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, say­ing while their term was brief, he wished them both the best.