RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (RHA) work­ers say they are still wait­ing on salary in­creas­es, even as oth­er pub­lic ser­vants pre­pare to ben­e­fit from a 10 per cent wage in­crease se­cured by the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) start­ing this month.

The RHA work­ers say in­stead of get­ting in­creas­es, they are brac­ing for de­duc­tions due to in­creased health sur­charge con­tri­bu­tions.

RHA work­ers say that while they un­der­stand the process, the de­lay has left them feel­ing side­lined, par­tic­u­lar­ly as they con­tin­ue to pro­vide front­line health ser­vices un­der dif­fi­cult con­di­tions.

The work­ers say they are hop­ing for clear­er time­lines and as­sur­ances that they will not be left be­hind as oth­er pub­lic ser­vants re­ceive their long-await­ed in­creas­es.

In a post on Face­book on Fri­day, PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas re­vealed that ne­go­ti­a­tions with the RHAs have start­ed, and pro­pos­als were is­sued.

Thomas said: “I had the priv­i­lege of lead­ing a del­e­ga­tion com­pris­ing my ex­ec­u­tive and of­fi­cers of the PSA, rep­re­sent­ing each Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (RHA), in­to ne­go­ti­a­tions with the four Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties in Trinidad. Dur­ing these ne­go­ti­a­tions, we were able to ad­vance pro­pos­als in re­la­tion to salaries, cost of liv­ing al­lowances, and oth­er al­lowances.”

She added: “Next steps, each RHA must now en­gage its Board of Di­rec­tors and, through the Min­istry of Health, ob­tain guide­lines from the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer for the sign off of ne­go­ti­a­tions for the 2014-2016 and 2017-2019 pe­ri­ods.”

Thomas al­so as­sured work­ers: “We will con­tin­ue to com­mu­ni­cate with you as we progress to­wards the con­clu­sion of your ne­go­ti­a­tions.”

How­ev­er, in re­sponse, the RHA work­ers said the state­ment of­fered lit­tle re­as­sur­ance.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, one work­er, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said staff were hop­ing for con­fir­ma­tion that Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo would re­lease the nec­es­sary funds so RHA em­ploy­ees could al­so re­ceive salary in­creas­es.

“What Fe­l­isha post­ed was not re­al­ly an up­date,” the work­er said. “We were hop­ing to hear that the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance would re­lease the funds. In­stead, we are hear­ing about more wait­ing.”

The work­er al­so raised con­cerns about work­er morale, say­ing many RHA em­ploy­ees were dis­ap­point­ed.

“Some of us are hired by the RHA and rep­re­sent­ed by the PSA, but we did not ben­e­fit. It was very hard for work­ers, es­pe­cial­ly know­ing oth­ers were get­ting in­creas­es, and we were not,” the work­er said.

A source at the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) ex­plained that salary ad­just­ments for RHA work­ers can­not be im­ple­ment­ed us­ing the col­lec­tive agree­ment ne­go­ti­at­ed by the PSA be­cause work­er clas­si­fi­ca­tion and job de­scrip­tions were dif­fer­ent.

“Un­til ne­go­ti­a­tions with the PSA are fi­nalised, the RHAs would then re­quest ad­di­tion­al fund­ing to cov­er salary pay­ments,” the source said.

Last year, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty while work­ing to set­tle out­stand­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions across the pub­lic sec­tor. He not­ed at the time that pay­ments would be guid­ed by com­plet­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions and avail­able fund­ing.