Indarsingh calls for revolution over 2% wage offer

THE Government has kicked and whipped the working class of Trinidad and Tobago with its latest collective bargaining offer, said Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh.

He was speaking at the United National Congress press conference on Sunday which was held at the office of the Opposition Leader on Charles Street, Port of Spain.

Indarsingh said the latest offer by the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) of a two per cent wage increase over the eight-year period spanning 2014 and 2021 was shameful and must be rejected by the labour movement.

“It will go down as the most disgraceful wage offering in the history of this country and public officers must see it as disgraceful, disrespectful, disdainful, condescending, arrogant, deluded and vastly distant from economic realities facing workers and their families across this country.

“The time has come for a revolution of minds and a revolution of the people to take to the streets of TT to push back this Government is upon us.”

He said collective bargaining under the People’s National Movement (PNM) has never been free, fair and independent.

Indarsingh said increased cost of living, especially for food, health, education and fuel cannot be escaped.

He accused the Government of making promises that never materialised, such as the non-closure of Petrotrin and the subsequent sale of the refinery to the Oilfield Workers Trade Union and, in 2020, a pension plan for daily paid workers.

“We are in 2022, the mid-year review was presented by the Minister of Finance, and he did not say anything about how much will be found to fund this daily paid contributory pension plan, whether there will be a management committee, who will be the service provider and so on. And that is why we are saying they cannot be trusted.”

Indarsingh said the country was in a crisis in all areas and sectors because of poor leadership which has amounted to a lack of innovation, transformation, progress, vision or creativity. “The economy is in shambles. There is unprecedented nepotism and corruption.”