WIGUT, Santa does not live here anymore

THE EDITOR: It is my personal, unsolicited view that although you can say what you want in TT, you can no longer do exactly what you like without dire consequences. And I mean dire, for everybody. Why? Because wage negotiations from all the trade unions cannot easily be met.

Where will the financing come from? It is particularly depressing that the members of the union representing University of the West Indies (UWI) staff, WIGUT, keep behaving as if they do not understand that one and one makes two. How come? Highly trained tutors are not understanding the reasoning behind the difficulty in the government being a present-day financial Santa Claus?

How difficult is it to embrace the reality that the covid19 pandemic and the ongoing war in the Ukraine contributed to economic disaster for the entire world? TT businesses suffered drastically. Plus, of course, any talk about floating the TT dollar will result in a stab in the back for the man in the street.

It is par for the course to blame the government for everything under the sun. All opposition parties are making wild promises that they cannot possibly deliver. What worked in 2010 cannot work in 2025.

Agreed salary increases from way back when now total a high 28 per cent payout for WIGUT. The entire world is on hold with the possibility of World War III. People with a university education are most certainly aware of this looming catastrophe.

How can we ever forget that the government is responsible for financing the entirety of the UWI to the tune of billions of taxpayers' dollars?

A well-know complaint from the opposition is that the government has backed away from endorsing full scholarships for all UWI students.

Will the government have to further cut the number of UWI student hopefuls in order to properly finance WIGUT's dreaming? What? Slash student numbers by 50 per cent?

Withholding UWI exam results is as unpalatable as the port workers causing suffering to our economy. Sick, sick, sick.

Santa Claus used to live in TT. These days he can only drop in for the Carnival weekend and leave after last lap.

LYNETTE JOSEPH

Diego Martin