RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

The salary dis­pute be­tween the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) has reached a crit­i­cal junc­ture, with both sides hold­ing firm on their po­si­tions.

Pres­i­dent of WIGUT, Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, has crit­i­cised the lack of di­rect en­gage­ment by the Gov­ern­ment, stat­ing, “Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert wouldn’t reach out di­rect­ly be­cause he doesn’t ne­go­ti­ate with the union.”

Dr Ram­per­sad de­scribed the frus­tra­tions of uni­ver­si­ty em­ploy­ees and the long de­lay in ad­dress­ing salary ad­just­ments.

“We have been wait­ing since 2014. We are go­ing in­to the 11th year of wait­ing,” she said. “The Gov­ern­ment has set­tled them­selves com­fort­ably. We want them to set­tle us as com­fort­ably as well.”

She high­light­ed the dis­par­i­ty be­tween the salaries pro­posed for uni­ver­si­ty staff and the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) and said, “We can­not ac­cept two per cent and two per cent be­cause that doesn’t fly. That does not work in these times.”

She added, “The aca­d­e­m­ic and se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive staff that we rep­re­sent are high­ly qual­i­fied peo­ple. Some of us are much more qual­i­fied than the politi­cians. We pro­vide an in­valu­able ser­vice to the na­tion­al and re­gion­al com­mu­ni­ties. You can’t just pick up a lec­tur­er on the side of the street.”

Ram­per­sad said WIGUT’s protest ac­tions will con­tin­ue un­til a “rea­son­able of­fer” is pre­sent­ed.

“We’re con­tin­u­ing with our protest ac­tion and wait­ing on a bet­ter re­mit from the Gov­ern­ment. Un­til we get some­thing that is rea­son­able and com­men­su­rate with the SRC rec­om­men­da­tion, we have to con­tin­ue,” she said.

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert is­sued a state­ment re­fut­ing claims of gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment in UWI’s wage ne­go­ti­a­tions. “The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is not the em­ploy­er of aca­d­e­m­ic staff at UWI. As such, the Gov­ern­ment is not a par­ty to their wage ne­go­ti­a­tions or col­lec­tive agree­ments.”

Im­bert ex­plained that UWI, as the di­rect em­ploy­er, is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for ad­dress­ing salary and em­ploy­ment con­di­tions with its staff. “The Gov­ern­ment’s role is lim­it­ed to pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port to UWI through an­nu­al sub­ven­tions, which cur­rent­ly ex­ceed $500 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly,” he said. This fund­ing in­cludes $79 mil­lion in back pay and $12 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture to as­sist UWI in meet­ing its oblig­a­tions.

The Min­is­ter al­so ad­dressed le­gal con­straints sur­round­ing wage dis­putes at UWI, not­ing that un­der Sec­tion 2(3)(c) of the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act of 1972, uni­ver­si­ty aca­d­e­m­ic staff are not clas­si­fied as “work­ers” and, there­fore, can­not take wage dis­putes to the In­dus­tri­al Court. He crit­i­cised re­cent me­dia re­ports and state­ments from the Op­po­si­tion for spread­ing what he de­scribed as “mis­lead­ing claims.”

Im­bert re­it­er­at­ed that re­solv­ing the dis­pute lies with UWI and its in­ter­nal pro­ce­dures.

“We’re look­ing for some­thing com­men­su­rate to the SRC rec­om­men­da­tion,” Dr Ram­per­sad said. “It’s about valu­ing the work of uni­ver­si­ty em­ploy­ees as much as the work of politi­cians.”