Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert says WIGUT’s de­mand for a 24 per cent salary in­crease, with back pay amount­ing to $701 mil­lion, can­not be met, since it will be a huge bur­den on tax­pay­ers.

“I do not think it is pru­dent to im­pose a bur­den of $701 mil­lion on the tax­pay­ers of T&T,” Im­bert said yes­ter­day not­ing that the four per cent in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants cost $79 mil­lion in back pay.

Im­bert spoke in Par­lia­ment on the stand­off be­tween Gov­ern­ment and the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers af­ter Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh asked about the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

WIGUT, led by Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, had threat­ened a “com­plete shut­down” of the UWI cam­pus yes­ter­day with a “Black­out Fri­day” protest, press­ing the Gov­ern­ment to com­plete ne­go­ti­a­tions. This was af­ter the union re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s two per cent of­fer for the 2015-2017 pe­ri­od. The union said it was of­fered 0-0-2 for the pe­ri­od in ques­tion and its mem­bers are liv­ing on 2014 salaries.

On Thurs­day, Ram­per­sad and WIGUT mem­bers con­front­ed UWI prin­ci­pal Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine de­mand­ing a res­o­lu­tion of the is­sue. Ram­per­sad promised more protests in 2025, as lec­tur­ers in­tend­ed to with­hold stu­dents’ ex­am­i­na­tion marks.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives sit­ting, In­dars­ingh asked what ur­gent mea­sures were be­ing used by the Gov­ern­ment to avoid a com­plete shut­down of the UWI St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

Im­bert said, “Let me cor­rect what was said: that there would be a to­tal col­lapse of the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. I don’t think so. I think that was just an alarmist word­ing from (In­dars­ingh).”

Im­bert added, “It’s nec­es­sary to put some his­tor­i­cal facts in­to per­spec­tive. Over the pe­ri­od from Au­gust 2011 to Ju­ly 2014, the then min­is­te­r­i­al com­mit­tee un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­proved a ten per cent ad­just­ment in com­pen­sa­tion for aca­d­e­m­ic and se­nior staff at UWI rep­re­sent­ed by WIGUT.

“It was a four per cent salary ad­just­ment fol­lowed by an ad­di­tion­al six per cent, dis­trib­uted as fol­lows: from 2011 (a one per cent in­crease on top of the four per cent), from 2012 Ju­ly (an­oth­er one per cent on top of the orig­i­nal four per­cent) and from 2013 (a fur­ther four per cent on top of the orig­i­nal four per cent) to­talling ten per cent be­tween 2011 and 2014.”

Im­bert said Gov­ern­ment had since ex­tend­ed to WIGUT its four per cent of­fer that has been made to the pub­lic ser­vices and was ac­cept­ed by sev­er­al as­so­ci­a­tions rep­re­sent­ing the pro­tec­tive ser­vices for the pe­ri­ods 2014-2017 and 2017-2020.

He added, “I’m ad­vised that WIGUT re­fused to con­sid­er the last pe­ri­od 2017-2020 and has not ac­cept­ed the of­fer for the pe­ri­od 2014-2017.”

Im­bert ex­plained that WIGUT is re­quest­ing salary in­creas­es of eight per cent from Ju­ly 2014, an­oth­er eight per cent from Ju­ly 2015, and an ad­di­tion­al eight per cent from 2016—to­talling a 24 per cent in­crease for the pe­ri­od 2014–2017.

Im­bert added, “The re­cur­rent cost of the pro­pos­al from WIGUT is es­ti­mat­ed at an ad­di­tion­al $78m per an­num for UWI, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

“If we were to ac­cept the pro­pos­al from WIGUT, the back pay would be $701m as at March 2024.

“The cost of the four per cent of­fer which we’ve of­fered to every­body else and which is be­ing ac­cept­ed by most trade unions is es­ti­mat­ed at a back pay of $79m and $12m in ad­di­tion­al re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture.”

Im­bert ex­plained that UWI is fund­ed by the State with hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in sub­ven­tions.

“For 2018-2019 year, Gov­ern­ment’s sub­ven­tion was $517m. For the 2019-2020 year $520m, for 2020- 2021 it was $528m. There­fore any set­tle­ment of wages at UWI will place the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on the Gov­ern­ment and the tax­pay­ers to fund this in­crease.

“I do not think it is pru­dent to im­pose a bur­den of back pay of $701m on the tax­pay­ers of T&T. There are means for set­tling dis­pute. There are dis­pute res­o­lu­tion pro­ce­dures and I’d urge all par­ties to utilise the avail­able dis­pute res­o­lu­tion in­sti­tu­tions.”

He stressed the mat­ter was not about gov­ern­ment in­ter­fer­ence but af­ford­abil­i­ty.