Unions: Referral of wage talks to tribunal 'dictatorial'

TRADE union leaders have denounced as "dictatorial" any move to refer wage negotiations to the Industrial Court's special tribunal.

On Friday, three of the four unions referred to the tribunal said they were not told anything about the referral.

In a telephone interview on Friday, president of the Prison Officers Association (POA) Ceron Richards said the referral was undermining the entire wage negotiations process.

He said the first he heard of it was when it was announced by the Finance Minister Colm Imbert during the reading of the 2023 budget.

Imbert said four unions had negotiations with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) sent to the special tribunal as discussions could go no further. Imbert said the government’s four per cent offer for two negotiating periods remains on the table and at any time any one of the unions can accept the offer, ending the tribunal.

The four per cent offer covers the negotiating period from 2014 to 2019

The unions sent to the tribunal are the POA, the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA, the Police Social and Welfare Association and the TT Fire Service Association.

"The first time we heard of this being sent to the tribunal was in the media. The union has not received any documentation from the CPO or the Industrial Court informing us that negotiations had broken down to the point that it needed to be sent to a tribunal.”

TTUTA’s president Antonia Tehka-DeFreitas said the union was also in the dark on the referral.

“TTUTA has not received any documents from the Industrial Court. Until then the pronouncement in the public domain does not qualify as an official notification.”

She said she could comment until TTUTA was given official notice.

Richards said the POA and the CPO met three times but they were yet to discuss the union's requests.

“I am very concerned about the status of these negotiations. From the beginning of these negotiations, it was severely undermined. What is this special tribunal? There is no option of appealing their decisions.

"This is a strict political situation. I have never experienced this before. This is unique.”

Imbert said Amalgamated Workers Union and the Defence Force had accepted the four per cent offer.

However, Richards said the Defence Force signing was peculiar. He said the unit usually signs after other protective services.

Fire Service Association president Leo Ramkissoon also said the surprise referral to the tribunal was a “unilateral and draconian attempt to suppress and oppress salaries of the protective services.”

He said they too only had three in-person meetings with the CPO which he described as a "façade aimed at attempting to fool the public into believing that reasonable consideration was being given."

“What we saw was an unprecedented and dictatorial approach that was woefully insufficient, contravening long standing negotiation practices.”

Vice-president of the Police Social Welfare Association, ASP Ishmael Pitt, said the referral to the tribunal was disheartening as the association believed the government understood the role police played, especially in the past two years.

"Right now, it is a matter of regrouping because this process is binding. We trust that the government, in its quiet moment, considers the last two years when police officers went above and beyond the call of duty.

"We know things are not what they used to be economically, but police officers deserve a decent standard of living."