RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA), Idi Stu­art, has giv­en Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo un­til to­mor­row to clar­i­fy when Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (RHA) work­ers will re­ceive their long-await­ed salary in­creas­es.

Stu­art stressed that the union is not de­mand­ing im­me­di­ate pay­ment but is seek­ing trans­paren­cy.

“We are not ask­ing for the mon­ey now. We are ask­ing the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to say when that process will be com­plet­ed and when monies will be in work­ers’ bank ac­counts,” he said.

Stu­art ex­plained that the mat­ter could be re­solved quick­ly if Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe sub­mits a Cab­i­net note re­quest­ing ap­proval for the al­lo­ca­tion of funds. Once ap­proved, it would then be up to the Fi­nance Min­is­ter to re­lease the mon­ey.

“That is all that needs to hap­pen. That could hap­pen to­mor­row; that could hap­pen in one week,” he said.

He warned that if the Fi­nance Min­is­ter fails to is­sue a pub­lic state­ment by the dead­line, the TTNNA will in­form mem­bers of the next steps, which could in­clude a se­ries of demon­stra­tions.

“We would have writ­ten to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, writ­ten to the Min­is­ter of Health, and mes­saged them. The si­lence com­ing from these two in­di­vid­u­als leaves one to won­der if they are con­cerned about the wel­fare of health­care work­ers and pa­tients,” Stu­art added.

The dis­pute comes in the wake of a ten per cent wage in­crease re­cent­ly agreed for pub­lic ser­vants. While work­ers rep­re­sent­ed by the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) have be­gun re­ceiv­ing the in­crease, Stu­art said the sit­u­a­tion for RHA em­ploy­ees is more com­plex.

He ex­plained that about 80 per cent of RHA work­ers do not fall un­der a recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union (RMU) and there­fore can­not di­rect­ly ne­go­ti­ate. These em­ploy­ees are el­i­gi­ble for the ten per cent in­crease once Cab­i­net ap­proves the funds.

Small­er groups rep­re­sent­ed by unions—in­clud­ing doc­tors un­der MPATT, dai­ly-paid work­ers un­der NUGFW, and a sub­set of su­per­vi­so­ry nurs­es un­der TTNNA—must ne­go­ti­ate sep­a­rate­ly with the RHAs.

Stu­art said TTNNA has al­ready held two rounds of talks, but RHA of­fi­cials have not been giv­en a man­date on what to of­fer.

“They don’t have a fig­ure. No fig­ure has been giv­en to them,” he said.

He al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for fail­ing to ap­point mem­bers to the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board (RRCB), which grants RMU sta­tus. With­out it, some work­ers are ef­fec­tive­ly blocked from ne­go­ti­at­ing legal­ly, cre­at­ing a “catch-22,” he said.

Mean­while, PSA South chair­man at the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Clint Walk­er, said his union has not en­dorsed any sick-outs or in­dus­tri­al ac­tion.

“We have not asked any­one to take any sick leave be­cause of the ne­go­ti­a­tion process that has been tak­ing place,” Walk­er said. “There is no need for a sick-out.”

He ac­knowl­edged cir­cu­lat­ing mes­sages en­cour­ag­ing nurs­es to get flu vac­ci­na­tions dur­ing work hours as a form of protest, but stressed that PSA has not rec­om­mend­ed such ac­tion.

“At the end of the day, pa­tient care is im­por­tant,” he said. “We have in­di­cat­ed to our mem­bers that we should not do any in­dus­tri­al ac­tion that would af­fect pa­tient ser­vices.”

Walk­er con­firmed ne­go­ti­a­tions for RHA work­ers are on­go­ing. He said PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas has met with RHA CEOs and will con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions to fi­nalise a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing for the wage in­crease.

“It has to be bud­get­ed for. It has to go through the CEOs of the RHA, the board, the Min­is­ter of Health and then the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance,” Walk­er ex­plained. “So we need a lit­tle time for it to hap­pen.”

He not­ed that his­tor­i­cal­ly, im­ple­men­ta­tion of wage agree­ments can take up to six months af­ter sign­ing. The ten per cent in­crease was con­clud­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly two months ago.

Ri­car­do Ghoolcha­ran, in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer with the PSA, urged mem­bers to re­main pa­tient.

“It hasn’t even reached the six-month mark. The biggest ben­e­fit we saw was that pub­lic ser­vants signed for ten per cent and CO­LA was ad­just­ed. So the ben­e­fits will be there,” he said.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, con­tact­ed for com­ment, said the Min­istry “recog­nis­es and ap­pre­ci­ates the con­tin­ued ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment” of health­care work­ers and shares their de­sire for “fair and time­ly con­sid­er­a­tion of com­pen­sa­tion mat­ters.”

He added that the Min­istry is seek­ing work­ers’ con­tin­ued pa­tience as col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing with all reg­is­tered ma­jor­i­ty unions con­tin­ues.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter Tan­coo, and his re­sponse is pend­ing.