DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment is giv­ing the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) a fi­nal two-week ex­ten­sion to re­spond to its of­fer to set­tle out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for 2014–2016 and 2017–2019, while main­tain­ing that the pro­pos­al it­self will not change.

The po­si­tion was re­it­er­at­ed fol­low­ing a rough­ly hour-long meet­ing be­tween Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al and PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas at the CPO’s of­fice in Port-of-Spain.

The on­ly vari­a­tion to the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al, ac­cord­ing to Din­di­al, is an op­tion for the out­stand­ing ar­rears to be paid month­ly over three years.

The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to pro­pose that 40 per cent of the set­tle­ment be paid in cash and 60 per cent through non-cash ben­e­fits.

That falls short of the PSA’s counter-pro­pos­al for 60 per cent cash, with the re­main­der paid as de­ferred cash.

In a state­ment is­sued by the CPO’s of­fice fol­low­ing the meet­ing, Din­di­al main­tained the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion and said the pro­pos­al re­mains its fi­nal of­fer.

“Com­man­der Din­di­al re­it­er­at­ed that the of­fer re­mains the Gov­ern­ment’s fi­nal of­fer and that, in the giv­en cir­cum­stances, the Gov­ern­ment is act­ing re­spon­si­bly to pre­serve jobs in the Pub­lic Ser­vice. He ex­plained that the non-cash items pos­sess val­ue and, in many in­stances, re­quire the Gov­ern­ment to forego rev­enue in or­der to off­set the ar­rears through non-cash op­tions. He fur­ther clar­i­fied that the on­ly vari­a­tion in the of­fer is an op­tion for ar­rears to be paid on a month­ly ba­sis over a three-year pe­ri­od.”

Din­di­al de­scribed the pro­pos­al as “a re­spon­si­ble and sus­tain­able ap­proach” to re­solv­ing the out­stand­ing mat­ter and urged the PSA to con­sid­er it with a view to end­ing the pro­tract­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The talks have last­ed eight years and spanned two ad­min­is­tra­tions, three PSA pres­i­dents and three CPOs.

Din­di­al said the Gov­ern­ment wants to bring the ne­go­ti­a­tions to a con­clu­sion and pro­vide cer­tain­ty for pub­lic of­fi­cers.

Thomas, mean­while, ac­knowl­edged that there was “slight move­ment” dur­ing yes­ter­day’s meet­ing but de­clined to elab­o­rate be­fore con­sult­ing with the PSA ex­ec­u­tive next week.

The out­come of those dis­cus­sions could de­ter­mine the next step in the long-run­ning dis­pute.

For­mer PSA pres­i­dent Clyde Weath­er­head said last Thurs­day that if the two sides fail to reach an agree­ment through ne­go­ti­a­tions, the mat­ter could even­tu­al­ly move be­yond the bar­gain­ing process and be sent to a spe­cial tri­bunal.