RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

Amid loud ap­plause and cel­e­bra­tions, Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas de­clared vic­to­ry for pub­lic of­fi­cers, mo­ments af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo an­nounced that he had in­struct­ed the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to be­gin wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for pub­lic ser­vants for a 10 per cent in­crease.

Speak­ing dur­ing a press con­fer­ence streamed on Face­book yes­ter­day, Thomas said the an­nounce­ment marked a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to the Work­ers’ Agen­da, which fo­cused on fair com­pen­sa­tion, im­proved work­ing con­di­tions, and the strength­en­ing of the pub­lic ser­vice.

Thomas said she had al­ready writ­ten to the CPO via email, propos­ing meet­ings next Tues­day, Wednes­day, and Fri­day to be­gin dis­cus­sions.

“I am se­ri­ous about my mem­bers’ busi­ness and I am ready to have their mon­ey in their pock­ets,” she said, not­ing that the PSA was pre­pared to move swift­ly to­ward a set­tle­ment.

She thanked the thou­sands of pub­lic of­fi­cers who she said re­mained stead­fast dur­ing years of frus­tra­tion. “Through all the years of stag­nant salaries, through the count­less work­place pres­sures, you stood firm. You kept the pub­lic ser­vice mov­ing when there was no re­ward,” she said. “To­day, your per­se­ver­ance has been re­ward­ed.”

Thomas re­mind­ed mem­bers that the strug­gle for fair com­pen­sa­tion had spanned more than a decade, dat­ing back to 2014 when the last salary ne­go­ti­a­tions were held. Since then, she said, pub­lic of­fi­cers have con­tin­ued to work un­der 2013 rates, with unions re­ject­ing a four per cent of­fer from the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“This vic­to­ry be­longs to the work­ers who re­fused to give up,” Thomas said. “It was not easy, but you stayed unit­ed. You chose to be­lieve that jus­tice would come, and to­day, we see the re­sults of that sol­i­dar­i­ty.”

She al­so urged mem­bers to main­tain pro­fes­sion­al­ism and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, say­ing the next chap­ter would de­pend on the com­mit­ment of work­ers to de­liv­er qual­i­ty ser­vice. “If we want to see bet­ter terms and con­di­tions next pe­ri­od, we must rise to the oc­ca­sion,” she said. “We must show that when work­ers are treat­ed fair­ly, the en­tire coun­try ben­e­fits.”

Thomas ex­tend­ed ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Gov­ern­ment for tak­ing de­ci­sive steps to en­gage with the labour move­ment. “Thank you for re­spect­ing work­ers not just in words, but in ac­tion,” she said. “This part­ner­ship be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and pub­lic of­fi­cers is a for­mu­la for progress.”

As ne­go­ti­a­tions pre­pare to restart next week, Thomas said the union’s goal is to en­sure that every mem­ber sees tan­gi­ble re­sults.

De­liv­er­ing his maid­en Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo con­firmed that the Prime Min­is­ter had in­struct­ed him to ad­vise the CPO to sub­mit a re­vised 10 per cent of­fer for the 2014–2016 and 2017–2019 ne­go­ti­a­tion pe­ri­ods. “Promise made, promise kept,” Tan­coo said. “When the UNC wins, pub­lic ser­vants win.”

Tan­coo said the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to com­plete the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process for the civ­il ser­vice, statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties, and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. The es­ti­mat­ed an­nu­al cost of im­ple­ment­ing the new agree­ments is $214 mil­lion, with retroac­tive pay­ments pro­ject­ed at $730 mil­lion.

He al­so out­lined sev­er­al ini­tia­tives de­signed to mod­ernise and reg­u­larise the pub­lic ser­vice, in­clud­ing a job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed with­in six to eight months.

“Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40 per cent of fixed-term con­tract po­si­tions will be made per­ma­nent and pen­sion­able.”

Tan­coo added that re­tirees who were re­moved from the Unimed Group Health Plan would soon re­gain ac­cess to med­ical cov­er­age.