The 5% solution

The Finance Minister must have known that announcing a five per cent increase for the 2020-2022 bargaining period during a budget speech would have riled trade unions which have denounced it as a declaration, not a starting position for negotiations.

Trying to defend the announcement of the government’s public-sector bargaining position during a budget speech, Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi sought to portray it as a “starting offer on top of the four per cent you got already.”

Except some unions haven’t accepted four per cent for the 2014-2019 negotiations yet, and the matters between the PSA and NUGFW are currently before the Industrial Court. Nor has he justified it as matching dramatic cost-of-living increases.

Perhaps Mr Imbert felt that since some public sector workers have received their back pay for the 2014-2019 negotiations, the stage might have been set for another incremental increase, but representative unions were quick to respond that would not be the case.

Most union leaders dismissed the announcement as an attempt to circumvent the negotiation process and viewed it as an insult to their role.

Unions representing public sector workers formally negotiate with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) who is guided by the Finance Minister’s willingness to loosen the purse strings of the treasury to increase salaries for government workers.

Public sector unions have made it clear that they will negotiate with the CPO under the legal requirements of collective bargaining and not with the Finance Minister, in any form.

It's a sensitive time to appear to be taking a hard line with workers.

When CAL pilots were moved to mount a placard protest at Piarco on October 3, it was yet another indicator of dissatisfaction with the government’s approach to collective bargaining. The collective agreement with the TT Airline Pilots Association (TTALPA) expired nine years ago.

CAL’s pilots were particularly hard hit during covid19 restrictions on flights, and they were called on to accept dramatic reductions in their salaries of up to 57 per cent.

Placards held by the crisply tailored aviators at the airport included complaints about expired contracts and a 20 per cent salary cut. The pilots have embraced the four per cent increase recommended by the Finance Minister, but dismiss CAL’s payment of an annual performance increment of up to three per cent as relevant to their contractual concerns. TTALPA argues that contractually guaranteed increments related to performance can’t be conflated with increases in overall salary that address escalating costs of living.

The state needs a workforce that’s willing to engage with its efforts to modernise and transform, but blunt force tactics aren’t an invitation to change and are likely to foment resentment and resistance when the major changes underway require understanding and cooperation.