UWI lecturers say yes to 6% pay increase

THE West Indies Group of University Teachers (WIGUT) has accepted a six per cent increase in salary after years of negotiations.

WIGUT president Dr Indira Rampersad, who was responding to questions from Newsday via a WhatsApp voicenote on February 8, said its members voted to accept the 0-0-3, 0-0-3 per cent wage increase for two negotiation periods, 2014-2017 and 2017-2020, on February 6.

Referring to the fact the country was in a state of emergency, and there was a pending interim prime minister and an acting commissioner of police she said, “Given the political and economic uncertainty, they thought that it would be in their best interest to accept this.

“However this is by no means adequate. We are not gleeful. We are not elated. We are not celebrating. It’s just that we are relieved. These were long-standing and protracted negotiations.

“This does not compare, by any means, with the public officials who got increases from the Salaries Review Commission. This doesn’t compare with the salaries at the UWI Cave Hill Campus (Barbados), Arthur Lok Jack (Global School of Business) or the UTT.”

She said the “paltry salary” would not compensate for the ever-increasing cost of living, and believed it would result in staff leaving the St Augustine Campus for other UWI campuses and universities around the world.

WIGUT initially asked for a 24 per cent increase and back pay for 2014-2020. In 2023, four per cent was offered and rejected. Then, in a press release on January 30, the Finance Minister increased the government’s offer to six per cent.

The increased offer followed protests and withholding 20,000 students' exam scores at the beginning of the semester. WIGUT also announced a planned "Blackout Week,” which would have seen a shutdown of services and departments across the UWI St Augustine campus for a week.

Rampersad said UWI principal Prof Rose-Marie Belle Antoine was worried about Blackout Week so there were emergency meetings, and Antoine “sought vigorously” to find a compromise.

She said the staff also accepted the offer in the best interest of the students.

With the acceptance, instructions went out to stop all protest action and submit the students' scores by midnight on February 10.

In an e-mail, Antoine said she was relieved industrial peace had been restored and believed it was “a reasonable compromise for the time being.” She agreed that, especially as UWI was the number-one university in the Caribbean and one of the top three per cent in the world, remuneration was behind that at other local and regional institutions.

“The practical consequence of that is that we are having difficulty attracting and even retaining staff – I had six academics resign two weeks ago – so I remain worried about the implications for the quality assurance and sustainability of the UWI. However, I thank the government for this first positive step.”

She recalled, some years ago, WIGUT took protest action when back pay was late in coming, and hoped to avoid anything similar this time so peace could be maintained.

Antoine added that the campus relied on government funding, and was not given a fair opportunity to be self-sustaining owing to artificially-restricted tuition fees that were way below market rates, as well as huge debts owed to UWI by students and other stakeholders, including the government.

She said the university was embarking on an endowment drive to receive donations and endowments from its many successful alumni and friends, and encouraged alumni to give back to their alma mater.