Achong: Unions were not 'forced' to accept 4%

Lawrence Achong, chairman of the essential services division of the Industrial Court, said he is not aware of what the special tribunal did or said that could be considered as forcing unions to accept the four per cent wage increase offered by the Ministry of Finance and the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO).

Members of the Joint Trade Union Movement – the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), TT Fire Officers Association (FOA), TT Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), Public Services Association (PSA) and Police Welfare Association (PWA) – held a press conference on Monday saying they were concerned over the way the special tribunal is made up.

The labour leaders said they had no choice but to accept the offer.

On Tuesday, Achong said, “They decided they did not want the tribunal to hear it again, they went and accepted the minister’s (Finance Minister) offer. I don’t know why they did it or what is the reason.

“How we could force somebody to do something?”

At the press conference, union heads said their main concern is that the positions of the essential services division’s special tribunal have no security of tenure and are appointed by Cabinet.

Achong said, “I don’t know how all of a sudden it becomes an issue. The tribunal has been established since 1965.”

He added, “Right now, we have the CPO and the PSA before us...The PWA signed without coming to court at all. They signed first. Prisons came and partway through the trial, they decided that they are going to accept the four per cent and they did so. So did TTUTA, so the outstanding matters are FOA and PSA.”

Achong said there was another hearing on Thursday afternoon.

The unions have been negotiating for the period 2014-2019 and accepted an offer of zero, zero, two, zero, zero, two for each year respectively.