KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Labour Stephen Mc Clashie says the 10 per cent wage in­crease re­quest by the Air­line Pi­lots As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (TTA­PA) is un­re­al­is­tic, as Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) is not mak­ing a lot of mon­ey.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at Gulf City Mall, La Ro­main, yes­ter­day, Mc Clashie said TTAL­PA must con­sid­er the com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to pay and what is the na­tion­al norm. He said go­ing be­yond nor­mal should be sub­stan­ti­at­ed with prof­itabil­i­ty and oth­er out­puts.

Mc Clashie, who is sched­uled to hold a con­cil­ia­to­ry meet­ing with CAL and the union, said Gov­ern­ment has been clear on what it can af­ford.

“We have, in all in­stances and in many ju­ris­dic­tions, main­tained four per cent. The ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Caribbean Air­lines and the pi­lots: they are still ne­go­ti­at­ing be­cause there are sev­er­al oth­er is­sues for which they may have trade-offs. There­fore, it is not quite set­tled, and one can­not pro­nounce on it yet,” Mc Clashie said.

Asked what he ex­pects when he meets with the par­ties, Mc Clashie said the Min­istry of Labour was gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion, but the mat­ter re­mains an in-house is­sue be­tween CAL and the TTAL­PA.

“We have not got­ten in­volved be­cause no­body has ac­tu­al­ly come to the min­istry and said we need your in­ter­ven­tion. Un­til there is a dis­pute, at that time, they can re­fer it to the Min­istry of Labour. Both par­ties are still speak­ing, so it is not con­sid­ered a dis­pute, at this time, for the Min­istry of Labour to get in­volved,” Mc Clashie said.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a re­lease on Thurs­day, TTAL­PA said the Min­istry of Labour had agreed to hold a con­cil­ia­to­ry meet­ing with the union and TTAL­PA, adding it wel­comed the in­ter­ven­tion.

Mc Clashie called on the pi­lots to keep the di­a­logue open and not cre­ate more is­sues that bring CAL in­to dis­re­pute and show T&T in “a par­tic­u­lar light”. He al­so asked them to con­sid­er the trav­el­ling pub­lic and their in­vest­ments.

Re­gard­ing a pro­posed min­i­mum wage in­crease, he said cit­i­zens should stay tuned.

Mean­while, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga has ex­pressed op­ti­mism that Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion will lead to a speedy res­o­lu­tion of ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween CAL and TTA­PA.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of im­por­tance of the is­sue in the wake of the pi­lots’ protest last week­end, de No­bri­ga said, “Gov­ern­ment has sig­nalled its aware­ness by the Min­is­ter of Labour step­ping in to as­sist with those ne­go­ti­a­tions, the gen­er­al pub­lic should see that as an in­di­ca­tion of our aware­ness and I just hope that we can get to the end of it as quick­ly as pos­si­ble be­cause at the end of this, the on­ly peo­ple re­al­ly im­pact­ed are the trav­el­ling pub­lic.

“I look for­ward to that be­ing com­plet­ed as soon as pos­si­ble and of course the min­is­ter of labour has stepped in and I hope his par­tic­i­pa­tion will as­sist in mov­ing that along.” 

De No­bri­ga was speak­ing fol­low­ing the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny of coun­cil­lors for the Bor­ough of Diego Mar­tin at the Bagatelle Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Diego Mar­tin.