KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) is warn­ing that it is pre­pared to shut down all op­er­a­tions at Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go Ltd (TSTT) with im­me­di­ate ef­fect if man­age­ment backs away from a ten per cent wage in­crease the union says was agreed to for work­ers.

CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer said the union is look­ing for­ward to con­clud­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly in light of TSTT’s record fi­nan­cial per­for­mance for the year end­ed March 31, 2026.

Speak­ing at a CWU me­dia con­fer­ence held at its head­quar­ters on Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Ogeer thanked the com­pa­ny in ad­vance for set­tling ne­go­ti­a­tions.

She said, “I want to thank TSTT in ad­vance for set­tling the ten per cent in­crease for our work­ers… We agreed on ten per cent with con­sol­i­da­tion of CO­LA for the pe­ri­od 2020 straight to 2025, and we are ac­tu­al­ly hap­py, as a mat­ter of fact, be­cause we are ac­tu­al­ly wait­ing for the CEO (Keino Cox) or the vice pres­i­dent of HR, Mr Roshan Bab­wah, to call us for us to sign on the dot­ted line. Be­cause we would hate to think that is some kind of mis­un­der­stand­ing now if you are mak­ing that type of sig­nif­i­cant prof­it.”

Ogeer warned that there will be reper­cus­sions if TSTT did not ho­n­our what the union says was agreed.

She added, “If TSTT back­tracks from its promise af­ter an­nounc­ing huge prof­its, work­ers are ready to shut down all op­er­a­tions with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.”

“I have been in­struct­ed and man­dat­ed by the mem­ber­ship to shut the com­pa­ny down… So, I'm just putting the com­pa­ny on no­tice. We just made a prof­it. Don't put your foot in your mouth. We just made a prof­it, and we're look­ing good. Work­ers are com­mit­ted to con­tin­ue build­ing the es­tab­lish­ment, build­ing the com­pa­ny. Let us re­main poised for prof­itabil­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and vi­a­bil­i­ty.” ”

TSTT and its sub­sidiary, Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Ltd, re­cent­ly re­port­ed a prof­it af­ter tax of $214 mil­lion for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed March 31, 2026.

That is more than dou­ble the pre­vi­ous year’s fig­ure.

The 103 per cent in­crease rep­re­sents the Group’s high­est an­nu­al prof­it since 2009.

As such, Ogeer stressed that the com­pa­ny’s fi­nan­cial re­sults demon­strate that TSTT is in a po­si­tion to ho­n­our its com­mit­ment to em­ploy­ees.

TSTT, how­ev­er, has not con­firmed the ten per cent fig­ure cit­ed by the union.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to TSTT and act­ing CEO Keino Cox yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny said it re­mained com­mit­ted to en­gag­ing with the CWU “in good faith”.

In re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, the com­pa­ny said, “TSTT re­mains com­mit­ted to en­gag­ing with the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union in good faith through the es­tab­lished col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process. Mat­ters re­lat­ing to com­pen­sa­tion are sub­ject to that process. The com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to fo­cus on con­struc­tive en­gage­ment with the CWU and on reach­ing a re­spon­si­ble and sus­tain­able out­come in the best in­ter­ests of em­ploy­ees, cus­tomers and the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”