Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for thou­sands of pub­lic ser­vants will of­fi­cial­ly kick off to­day, be­tween the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO). Af­ter con­stant dai­ly march­es and protests, some 60,000 work­ers stand to ben­e­fit from salary in­creas­es for the pe­ri­od 2008�2010. Pres­i­dent of the PSA Wat­son Duke said it was "a bit­ter-sweet day." Speak­ing to the me­dia at a press con­fer­ence at PSA's head of­fice on Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Duke said it was "bit­ter" be­cause of the short pe­ri­od of time to con­clude ne­go­ti­a­tions. "For the very first time we are go­ing to con­clude the 2008, 2009, and 2010 col­lec­tive agree­ment," he said. "We in­tend to sit and speak with the CPO on the is­sue of al­lowances, more so, salary ne­go­ti­a­tions. "We are ex­pect­ing that these salary ne­go­ti­a­tions be con­clud­ed swift­ly, on or be­fore Oc­to­ber 31."

On Mon­day, Duke said, he re­ceived a let­ter from the CPO ask­ing to com­mence ne­go­ti­a­tions to­day at 9.30 am at the CPO's of­fice. He said the let­ter came days af­ter the PSA and some "3,000 mem­bers" marched from the Fi­nan­cial Com­plex on In­de­pen­dence Square, Port-of-Spain, to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in St Clair. Duke said the let­ter stat­ed the mat­ter was ac­knowl­edged and re­ferred to the Min­istries of Fi­nance and Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion. "This is in­deed a vic­to­ry for the 60,000 pub­lic of­fi­cers that we lead and I want to en­sure my col­leagues out there that this is the year of the pub­lic of­fi­cer and this year will end with pub­lic of­fi­cers com­ing out of pover­ty and in­to the mar­vel­lous light of job sat­is­fac­tion and fi­nan­cial free­dom," Duke said.

He said the mon­ey was owed to pub­lic ser­vants since 2008 and was not a gift. "To give us that mon­ey now is giv­ing us mon­ey that has lost its val­ue and it's not some­thing that we are very hap­py about and sat­is­fied with," Duke added. The PSA had been ask­ing that pub­lic ser­vants be giv­en a min­i­mum salary of $6,000. "We can­not ac­cept any­thing less than $6,000...To do that is to foul what was al­ready made known to the Par­lia­ment of this land, that is the $3,000 min­i­mum pen­sion." He added that a work­er who re­signed or re­tired with a salary of $5,000 would col­lect a pen­sion of $2,500. "In or­der to col­lect that min­i­mum pen­sion, we must en­deav­our to en­sure there is a ceil­ing of at least $6,000 to start with," Duke said.