Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Some trade unions re­main ap­pre­hen­sive about the mea­sures to ben­e­fit the work­ing class in the 2024 Bud­get, in­clud­ing the $3 in­crease in the min­i­mum wage and retroac­tive pay for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers.

They be­lieve that more com­pre­hen­sive ef­forts are re­quired to sup­port the work­ing class and that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s pre­sen­ta­tion should have placed stronger em­pha­sis on leg­isla­tive re­forms and strength­en­ing sys­tems to pro­tect work­ers.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, the pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC), Michael An­nisette, ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the de­ci­sion to raise the min­i­mum wage by $3 to $20.50, deem­ing it in­ad­e­quate.

He said the wage ad­just­ment still falls short of pro­vid­ing a liv­ing wage, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the es­ca­lat­ing cost of liv­ing in T&T.

An­nisette said, “When you cal­cu­late the new rate on a month­ly ba­sis, it comes up to $3,552.65. You may won­der how I ar­rived at that fig­ure; we base it on a 40-hour work week and per­form the cal­cu­la­tions. Now, when you deduct the min­i­mum month­ly rental cost, which is $2,500, from the new min­i­mum wage of $3,552.65, set to be im­ple­ment­ed next year, the work­er is left with a dis­pos­able in­come of $1,052.65.

“That’s the re­al­i­ty. The ques­tion is, when you delve in­to the num­bers and analyse it close­ly, can a sin­gle par­ent or some­one with chil­dren sur­vive on $1,052.65 per month?”

He added, “The an­swer to that ques­tion is a re­sound­ing ‘no’. This is why we, in the labour move­ment, con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate that the Gov­ern­ment should pro­vide liv­ing wages that are fair, sus­tain­able, and re­flec­tive of the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic growth. This is es­pe­cial­ly cru­cial con­sid­er­ing the ris­ing cost of liv­ing and po­ten­tial in­creas­es re­sult­ing from the bud­get. We want to em­pha­sise to the pub­lic and our work­ers not to be mis­led by the num­bers.”

Dur­ing the Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Im­bert al­so stat­ed that unions that had agreed to the Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent wage in­crease would re­ceive retroac­tive pay­ments by the end of 2023.

The Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion is among the unions that ac­cept­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer. The union’s pres­i­dent, Leo Ramkissoon, ex­pressed grat­i­tude but not­ed that it is still in­suf­fi­cient.

He said, “While our salaries are es­sen­tial for sup­port­ing our fam­i­lies and liveli­hoods, a four per cent in­crease over a six-year pe­ri­od, which ef­fec­tive­ly amounts to nine years, is not as en­cour­ag­ing as what we had hoped for in our pro­pos­als. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we wel­come the pay­ment of our ar­rears, but our main con­cerns re­main un­re­solved. We had al­so hoped for re­forms to the Fire Ser­vice Act and the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act to make the ne­go­ti­a­tion process fair­er.”

The Prison Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (PoA), which al­so ac­cept­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent wage of­fer, high­light­ed the de­ci­sion to in­crease po­lice re­cruits by 1,000 in 2024 as a no­table point.

PoA pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don said, “We can on­ly hope that the Gov­ern­ment and the State con­tin­ue to recog­nise the cru­cial role that the prison ser­vice plays in the fight against crime. If we are in­deed ex­pand­ing the po­lice ser­vice, we should fo­cus equal­ly on the prison ser­vice, which is re­spon­si­ble for hold­ing of­fend­ers, whether they are re­mand­ed or con­vict­ed. We must strive for a bal­anced ap­proach, es­pe­cial­ly in terms of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rein­te­gra­tion.”

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion is one of the unions still chal­leng­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s four per cent wage of­fer, and is ex­pect­ed to is­sue a state­ment lat­er this week re­gard­ing the na­tion­al Bud­get.