Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

A group of trade unions is be­ing sup­port­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in their calls for gov­ern­ment to pri­ori­tise poli­cies to im­prove the liv­ing stan­dards of cit­i­zens in the up­com­ing bud­get.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous labour or­gan­is­tions, in­clud­ing the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM), Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (Natuc), the Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion and the Steel Work­ers Union, held closed door pre-bud­get dis­cus­sions with UNC of­fi­cials at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

Al­though Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and JTUM Pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get were not at the meet­ing, those in at­ten­dance said they had “a lot of ar­eas of com­mon­al­i­ty.”

Union rep­re­sen­ta­tives ex­pressed con­cern about state of the econ­o­my, which they claimed was adding to the fi­nan­cial woes faced by work­ing class cit­i­zens.

JTUM’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ozzy War­wick said, “One of the things we felt col­lec­tive­ly is that a lot of peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go have been suf­fer­ing and or­di­nary work­ing peo­ple have been, in our view, re­al­ly car­ry­ing the full bur­den of eco­nom­ic ad­just­ment.”

War­wick, who spoke with re­porters af­ter the meet­ing, said the pre-bud­get pro­pos­als sub­mit­ted to the Op­po­si­tion and Gov­ern­ment in­clud­ed an in­crease in the min­i­mum wage.

“It can­not be that you don’t want to raise the min­i­mum wage but you hap­py to in­crease the price of fu­el which you have con­trol over. That is a pol­i­cy de­ci­sion you took to in­crease fu­el cost but refuse to in­crease min­i­mum wage.

“We say that the call to in­crease min­i­mum wage is a prin­ci­pled call and when you con­sid­er some­one liv­ing on TT$3000 or TT$2800 a month and you have to pay rent, mort­gage and how to get to work, when you con­sid­er chil­dren, that is the point we mak­ing, what kind of Trinidad and To­ba­go do we want.”

Cur­rent­ly, the min­i­mum wage is $17.50 an hour. Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie re­cent­ly said it is be­ing re­viewed and a de­ci­sion is ex­pect­ed to be made about an ad­just­ment.  

War­wick re­peat­ed calls for the Gov­ern­ment to ad­just fu­el prices down­ward, not­ing that oil prices are trend­ing in that di­rec­tion.

“When they came to the coun­try and to the peo­ple to jus­ti­fy re­mov­ing the sub­sidy they said it was go­ing to based on the mar­ket. You nev­er said there would be some tech­ni­cal­i­ty that will make it dif­fi­cult. You didn’t say that, you said we have to re­move the sub­si­dies be­cause we have to fit more with­in the mar­ket prices with oil and gas. You can’t come af­ter the fact and then make up some tech­ni­cal­i­ty. Dis­agree with that,” he said.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark said de­spite the ab­sence of up­dat­ed in­come in­equal­i­ty da­ta, the cur­rent eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion paint­ed a grim pic­ture and in the dis­cus­sions with the unions mem­bers they ham­mered out pro­pos­als to as­sist cit­i­zens.

“We sup­port JTUM and NATUC as it re­lates to a liv­ing wage,” Mark said.

“We may squab­ble over the num­ber and amount that is sup­posed to be giv­en to the work­er who has to sat­is­fy ba­sic needs. Imag­ine in 2023 the min­i­mum wage is $17.50. That has been so since 2017. Since then to now, the cost of liv­ing has been in­creased by over 30 per cent.”