Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor– News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) is not rul­ing out protest ac­tion if nec­es­sary as it con­tin­ues to re­ject the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al for pay­ing civ­il ser­vants the back­pay re­sult­ing from their ten per cent wage in­crease.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, af­ter ad­dress­ing work­ers out­side the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, that the union would not shy away from tak­ing work­ers on­to the streets if a sat­is­fac­to­ry arrange­ment is not reached over the pay­ment of out­stand­ing back­pay for 2014–2016 and 2017–2019.

“Of course, when the time comes, we will do that. If nec­es­sary, we will do that. The PSA will not shy away from hit­ting the streets if nec­es­sary,” Thomas said.

“That is what is avail­able to work­ers, and that is what we will ex­er­cise,” she added.

Thomas was speak­ing af­ter Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al gave the PSA a fi­nal two-week ex­ten­sion to re­spond to the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al.

But Thomas re­ject­ed the idea that the union was work­ing against a two-week dead­line.

“Let me just re­spond to the two-week dead­line. There’s no dead­line for the PSA. The PSA re­sponds when the PSA re­sponds. But more than that, the PSA did re­spond in the meet­ing, and I said to the CPO that we can­not ac­cept that of­fer. We have re­ject­ed the of­fer, so there’s no two weeks for the CPO to fig­ure out where we are at. He knows where we are at. We have re­ject­ed the of­fer. And just to say that that of­fer of 40 per cent cash to be paid over a pe­ri­od of three years is a dis­re­spect to work­ers. And I don’t think I could say what I need to say about where he could take that of­fer and car­ry it. But the PSA will not be ac­cept­ing that.”

The Gov­ern­ment is main­tain­ing its pro­pos­al that 40 per cent of the back­pay be paid in cash and 60 per cent through non-cash ben­e­fits.

The on­ly vari­a­tion to the pro­pos­al is an op­tion for the out­stand­ing ar­rears to be paid month­ly over three years. The PSA has counter-pro­posed that 60 per cent be paid in cash, with the re­main­der paid as de­ferred cash.

Thomas said the union was in­sist­ing that work­ers re­ceive their back­pay in cash.

“At this point we are say­ing that work­ers must re­ceive their ar­rears in full cash,” she said.

Asked about teach­ers re­ceiv­ing their back­pay in cash, Thomas said she was pleased that teach­ers were re­ceiv­ing their mon­ey but point­ed out that the pe­ri­ods in­volved in the civ­il ser­vants’ out­stand­ing back­pay were dif­fer­ent.

“The teach­ers work hard and, just like every oth­er work­er, they are en­ti­tled to all of their mon­ey in cash just like the civ­il ser­vants. So I’m glad that they are get­ting their mon­ey. But just to say that they are a bit ahead of the civ­il ser­vants as well be­cause the cash they are re­ceiv­ing is now for 2020 to 2022.

“So the mon­ey that is owed to the civ­il ser­vants that they are ask­ing the union to con­sid­er part cash, part non-cash is for a dat­ed pe­ri­od which is 14 to 16, 17 to 19.”

Thomas said ne­go­ti­a­tions would con­tin­ue de­spite the CPO de­scrib­ing the pro­pos­al as a last of­fer.

“As I said, what the CPO is ask­ing is for the union to en­gage in some kind of favour. It’s not a de­mand. It is not a last of­fer,” she said.

She said the PSA had not been giv­en a time­line for con­clud­ing the dis­cus­sions.

“There is no time­line. The PSA has re­ceived no time­line.”

Asked whether she would seek a meet­ing with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo to help re­solve the mat­ter, Thomas said she would wel­come his in­ter­ven­tion.