President of the Public Service Association (PSA) Watson Duke has asked Finance Minister Colm Imbert to hold his hand on job cuts, at least for the next few months.
It was one of several matters raised during a meeting yesterday.
“Before we could even talk salaries, let us talk about job loss. Let us put a freeze on that, at least for the fiscal year 2021, which ends on September 30th, 2021,” he said he told the minister.
Duke told PSA members his request is not unreasonable since, “The minister is a man who loves freeze. Freeze on salary, freeze on filling vacancies, freeze on promotions.”
The PSA president, during a Facebook live broadcast yesterday, said he was not comforted by the minister’s response.
“He say he have to get back to me on that. No! These joke cards! When they don’t want to deal with the issue they will get back to you on that, hoping that I will forget. Well, I will not forget!” Duke charged.
He said he intends to have follow-up meetings with the finance minister, at least once a month.
During his address to PSA members, Duke held up a document that he said was presented to him by Minister Imbert.
Duke said the document showed “bleak” figures for projected revenue for the period 2018 to 2020 which did not match the actual revenue received. Last year, T&T was hoping to earn approximately $47.7 billion but only recorded $34.05 billion.
“Indeed, the figures he presented looked scary…looked bleak. It looks hopeless but, that is the position he wanted to have us in because it allows him to have the upper hand in negotiations,” Duke stated.
Economist, Dr Indera Sagewan told Guardian Media focus should be placed on protecting livelihoods right now. This, she noted is in addition to saving lives.
“All should be done, both in private and public sector, to maintain jobs not necessarily at full pay because of the challenges,” according to her.
Furthermore, she said wage increases should not even be considered right now.
“To maintain that labour force pre-covid was already a challenge because of the state of the economy,” she added.