Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union (AWU) pres­i­dent Michael Pren­tice has ac­cused the State of “bla­tant dis­crim­i­na­tion in the worst way,” af­ter claim­ing that Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion work­ers re­main with­out agreed salary in­creas­es and back­pay, de­spite oth­er pub­lic sec­tor groups al­ready re­ceiv­ing their ad­just­ments.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Pren­tice said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,600 dai­ly paid work­ers at the cor­po­ra­tion are still wait­ing on in­creas­es that were agreed un­der ne­go­ti­a­tions signed in 2025.

He said the union was among the first bar­gain­ing units to ac­cept the Gov­ern­ment’s five per cent wage pack­age un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion cy­cle, along­side oth­er unions such as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion and the Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union, both of which have since be­gun re­ceiv­ing in­creas­es and ar­rears.

“Work­ers are be­ing pushed aside,” Pren­tice said.

“It can­not be one yard­stick for one group and an­oth­er for oth­ers. That is dis­crim­i­na­tion in the worst way.”

How­ev­er, the union al­so high­light­ed a ma­jor point of con­tention – the Port-of-Spain cor­po­ra­tion’s po­si­tion that it does not cur­rent­ly have suf­fi­cient funds to im­ple­ment the in­creas­es with­out desta­bil­is­ing its wage bill.

Ac­cord­ing to Pren­tice, the cor­po­ra­tion has in­di­cat­ed that while it recog­nis­es the agree­ment, it is fac­ing a fi­nan­cial short­fall and would have to draw from its ex­ist­ing wage al­lo­ca­tion to meet pay­ments.

This, he said, could cre­ate a knock-on ef­fect where both dai­ly-paid and month­ly-paid work­ers risk de­layed or dis­rupt­ed salaries lat­er in the fi­nan­cial year.

“The cor­po­ra­tion is say­ing they are chal­lenged with fund­ing,” he ex­plained. “They are say­ing if they pay the in­creas­es from the wage bill, it will leave them un­able to sus­tain pay­roll oblig­a­tions go­ing for­ward.”

Pren­tice re­ject­ed that ex­pla­na­tion, in­sist­ing that both the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment had pub­licly stat­ed dur­ing the 2025 bud­get process that fund­ing had been pro­vid­ed for wage in­creas­es at the cor­po­ra­tion lev­el.

He said this con­tra­dic­tion now rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about whether al­lo­ca­tions were prop­er­ly dis­bursed or whether ad­min­is­tra­tive break­downs are pre­vent­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“You can­not tell work­ers that mon­ey was pro­vid­ed in the bud­get and then say there is no mon­ey to pay them. Some­thing is fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong,” he said.

The union leader point­ed to what he de­scribed as un­even roll­out across the pub­lic sec­tor, not­ing that TTUTA teach­ers and oth­er bar­gain­ing units have al­ready re­ceived in­creas­es and back­pay fol­low­ing set­tle­ments signed around the same pe­ri­od or lat­er.

He ar­gued that this dis­par­i­ty is deep­en­ing frus­tra­tion among mu­nic­i­pal work­ers who feel side­lined de­spite per­form­ing es­sen­tial san­i­ta­tion and pub­lic health du­ties.

“These are es­sen­tial work­ers at the low­est end of the wage struc­ture,” he said. “They are the ones keep­ing the city clean and func­tion­al, yet they are the ones be­ing made to wait.”

Pren­tice al­so warned that morale among work­ers has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, say­ing frus­tra­tion has been build­ing for months due to re­peat­ed de­lays and un­cer­tain­ty over im­ple­men­ta­tion time­lines.

He said the union has for­mal­ly re­quest­ed an ur­gent meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, sched­uled for May 14, but in­sist­ed that the is­sue re­quires im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion.

“We are de­mand­ing an­swers now, not lat­er. Work­ers can­not con­tin­ue to be treat­ed like this.”

While the union has not yet an­nounced in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, Pren­tice said its next move will de­pend on the out­come of dis­cus­sions with Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and whether clear com­mit­ments are made to re­solve the fund­ing and im­ple­men­ta­tion im­passe.

“We will hold strain un­til the meet­ing but if noth­ing changes, we will have to de­ter­mine our way for­ward.”

Re­spond­ing to the union’s con­cerns, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen said the Gov­ern­ment has had a co­op­er­a­tive re­la­tion­ship with work­ers.

“As Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, I have met with and con­tin­ue to have an open-door pol­i­cy with the rep­re­sen­ta­tive unions of all 14 mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties. I look for­ward to meet­ing with them soon,” Ameen said.