KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While a dis­sat­is­fied Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) re­turned to the Min­istry of Fi­nance yes­ter­day to press for pay­ment of out­stand­ing salary in­creas­es and back pay, its pres­i­dent, Crys­tal Ashe, said the union will not en­cour­age mem­bers to take in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

“We would nev­er en­cour­age them to run afoul of the law, and TTUTA is an or­gan­i­sa­tion like that; We are a very pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion,” Ashe said, not­ing yes­ter­day’s start to an­oth­er State of Emer­gency.

Speak­ing out­side the Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex in Port-of-Spain, he said TTUTA wants to en­sure its mem­ber­ship re­mains safe.

At schools, teach­ers wore black or in­cor­po­rat­ed black in­to their out­fits, ac­com­pa­nied by their red TTUTA rib­bons.

Ashe said teach­ers feel sad, dis­grun­tled, dis­ap­point­ed and dis­re­spect­ed.

“That is why we are wear­ing black to­day. To­day is an all-out black day. We are not stay­ing away from school or any­thing like that, but we are show­ing our sol­i­dar­i­ty by wear­ing black, and we are wear­ing our rib­bon.”

He ex­plained that the rib­bon ex­press­es: “We red un­til we get we bread. That is what we are say­ing, def­i­nite­ly.”

The demon­stra­tion fol­lowed a mes­sage to teach­ers de­clar­ing that “D-Day is com­ing,” ac­com­pa­nied by a graph­ic in­di­cat­ing that yes­ter­day was the dead­line for Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo’s re­sponse. It called on all ed­u­ca­tors to wear black with their red TTUTA rib­bons in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty and readi­ness.

Ear­li­er, Ashe and ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers de­liv­ered a let­ter to the Min­istry of Fi­nance. This marked TTUTA’ s sec­ond cor­re­spon­dence to Tan­coo, fol­low­ing last week’s vis­it, dur­ing which they hand­ed over a hard copy. Ashe said he was un­sure whether Tan­coo re­ceived the first let­ter and re­turned yes­ter­day in good faith to de­liv­er an­oth­er.

“Be­cause what we asked for in the hard copy was that cor­re­spon­dence be sent to TTUTA, in­di­cat­ing time­lines in terms of dates and so on. We have not re­ceived such cor­re­spon­dence. As a re­sult, we sim­ply came here to­day to de­liv­er an­oth­er copy to the Min­is­ter. The on­ly dif­fer­ence with this par­tic­u­lar copy is that there is some­thing that we put in a lit­tle ex­tra, which was the fact that the Min­is­ter and the CPO would have agreed to pay the third sched­ule peo­ple who were un­der PSA in 2014–2019, the ad­vance in back pay that all PSA mem­bers would have re­ceived in De­cem­ber.”

Ashe added that there was an agree­ment for pay­ment in Jan­u­ary, but Feb­ru­ary has passed with­out the mon­ey reach­ing the work­ers.

“We are re­mind­ing the Min­is­ter, kind­ly, that it is due to them, it was agreed to, and they are ex­pect­ing the same.”

He said TTUTA will con­tin­ue to write, speak and call for di­a­logue, not­ing that Tan­coo prefers pri­vate dis­course.

The union is en­sur­ing it de­liv­ers its mes­sage di­rect­ly and calls on the Min­is­ter to rec­i­p­ro­cate by re­spond­ing via email or let­ter.

“No prob­lem, Mr Min­is­ter, we will take it any­way, so I know you will be pro­fes­sion­al in the ex­e­cu­tion of your du­ty, and Mr Tan­coo, sir, we thank you in ad­vance.”

The cur­rent dis­pute traces back to April 2025, when TTUTA and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al signed a col­lec­tive agree­ment cov­er­ing the 2020–2023 pe­ri­od.

The terms in­clud­ed a five per cent salary in­crease for teach­ers and con­sol­i­da­tion of the Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance. Cab­i­net did not rat­i­fy the agree­ment un­til Jan­u­ary 2026.

Ashe de­liv­ered a let­ter to Tan­coo’s of­fice on Feb­ru­ary 22, re­quest­ing de­fin­i­tive dates for when teach­ers would re­ceive their re­vised salaries and out­stand­ing back pay.

He out­lined the union’s frus­tra­tion with de­lays and re­it­er­at­ed the sev­en-day dead­line for a re­sponse.

Last week, Tan­coo told the me­dia that teach­ers will re­ceive their new salaries and back pay by the first quar­ter of 2026.

He is cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try on of­fi­cial busi­ness and told Guardian Me­dia that he had seen the first let­ter and pre­pared a re­sponse be­fore leav­ing.

“I hope­ful­ly will be sent a copy of the sec­ond let­ter be­fore I com­ment fur­ther,” Tan­coo said.