PM: Link pay and productivity

PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley said the Government wants to improve the standard of living, but this depends on improved productivity, in his Labour Day message yesterday.

“We should continue to hold out that our remuneration must be commensurate with our productivity,” he said, also supporting good industrial relations practices.

While individuals work with the aim of enjoying a better standard of living, this goal is also the national objective being pursued by the Government, Rowley said.

“Indeed, the micro and the macro objectives are inextricably linked. We want the same thing and the odds of us achieving our goals are greatly improved if all we work together.

“Fellow citizens, Government and Labour are not pursuing opposing objectives.”

Rowley said the Government has a long and strong history of mutual support with the labour movement, and stands for the same ideals that trade unions had struggled for.

“We should be ever mindful of our economic climate or in simpler terms the size of the proverbial pie from which we all hope to have a piece and what we could do to ensure that pie grows and expands for future generations.

“It is with this in mind that I join with the Labour Movement and all the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago in celebrating Labour Day 2018.”