Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

Se­nior Re­porter

bavi­ta.gopaulchan@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Air­line Pi­lots’ As­so­ci­a­tion has ex­pressed con­cern about Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie’s com­ments about its 10 per cent wage in­crease pro­pos­al.

In fact, it is so con­cerned that it held and emer­gency meet­ing on the mat­ter yes­ter­day and now wants Mc Clashie to clear the air about whether he is bi­ased to­wards Caribbean Air­lines Lim­it­ed (CAL).

Short­ly af­ter a meet­ing with his coun­cil to dis­cuss the min­is­ter’s com­ments, TTAL­PA chair­man, Cap­tain Craig Ra­hamut, told Guardian Me­dia, “We look to the Min­is­ter of Labour as an un­bi­ased and neu­tral par­ty and are very un­hinged by his com­ments al­lud­ing to the fact that he may not be so neu­tral.”

Dis­agree­ing with Mc Clashie’s state­ment that a 10 per cent in­crease is “un­re­al­is­tic” giv­en CAL’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion, the union boss said, “I don’t think any­one in the coun­try is aware of CAL’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion at this point in time and, of course, he is pre­judg­ing our re­quest with­out even hear­ing our pro­pos­als.”

The min­is­ter, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, said he ex­pect­ed that dis­cus­sions be­tween CAL and TTAL­PA would con­tin­ue with­out his in­volve­ment, since a dis­pute had not been lodged with his min­istry, nor was the min­istry asked to step in.

How­ev­er, Ra­hamut not­ed that sev­er­al let­ters had been sent to the min­is­ter since 2021 seek­ing his in­ter­ven­tion, be­cause ne­go­ti­a­tions for the bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od 2015–2018 had been stuck for a while.

It was on­ly af­ter Sun­day’s dis­rup­tions un­fold­ed, in which 54 pi­lots re­port­ed sick, caus­ing the air­line to can­cel dozens of flights, that he said they fi­nal­ly heard from the Labour Min­istry.

Guardian Me­dia was told that on Mon­day around 12.15 pm, TTAL­PA was con­tact­ed by Brid­get Ig­natius and Sabi­na Gomez, of the min­istry’s Con­cil­i­a­tion, Ad­vi­so­ry and Ad­vo­ca­cy Di­vi­sion, who asked if the union is open to con­cil­ia­to­ry talks with CAL.

Ra­hamut said the union im­me­di­ate­ly and ea­ger­ly ac­cept­ed the of­fer, not­ing that TTAL­PA’s last of­fi­cial re­quest was is­sued on Ju­ly 13, 2023.

In the let­ter ad­dressed to the Min­is­ter, which Guardian Me­dia ob­tained a copy of, TTAL­PA in­di­cat­ed, “The last sub-com­mit­tee on Ju­ly 7, 2023, TTAL­PA re­quest­ed that five (5) dates be agreed up­on in at­tempt to con­clude the long over­due Ne­go­ti­a­tions of the Col­lec­tive Agree­ment. The com­pa­ny com­mit­ted to re­spond­ing to this re­quest on or be­fore Ju­ly 11, 2023, which they have failed to do to date. This does not sur­prise us, as it il­lus­trates the com­pa­ny’s be­hav­iour through­out these ne­go­ti­a­tions. The irony is that TTAL­PA has been as­sid­u­ous­ly try­ing, to no avail, to so­lic­it a pos­i­tive re­sponse from CAL so that we can progress the process.”

The union added, “It is TTAL­PA’s opin­ion that CAL is not treat­ing with the Recog­nised Ma­jor­i­ty Union (RMU) in good faith, and as such, we call up­on the Min­is­ter to utilise its good of­fice and set dates for con­cil­i­a­tion of the mat­ter so that par­ties can close the 2015 to 2018 Col­lec­tive Bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od.”

The TTAL­PA chair­man not­ed, how­ev­er, that while they are “be­wil­dered” by Mc Clashie’s state­ments, its mem­bers still wel­come any dis­cus­sions with the min­is­ter to have a speedy res­o­lu­tion to the im­passe, ex­press­ing hope that he will be im­par­tial.

Pressed on whether the pi­lots’ ac­tions on Sun­day were de­lib­er­ate, Ra­hamut ac­knowl­edged Sec­tion 67(2) of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act, which pro­hibits them from tak­ing any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion as es­sen­tial work­ers, and said it is up to the court to de­cide.

An ex-parte in­junc­tion, brought by CAL, was grant­ed by the In­dus­tri­al Court on Mon­day to have TTAL­PA in­struct pi­lot to re­turn to work.

Asked if all mem­bers were now back on du­ty, Ra­hamut said as far as he is aware, most pi­lots are back in the air, ex­cept for those who are still sick. He re­mind­ed mem­bers that TTAL­PA con­demns any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.