Roget on public-sector pay increase: 'Imbert can't bully us'

The Oilfield Workers Trade Union president general Ancel Roget says the unions reject the "bullying" by Finance Minister Colm Imbert who, in his budget statement, said the government will give workers five per cent in the next wage negotiations.

In his reading of the 2025 budget statement in Parliament on September 30, Imbert said the government would offer public-sector workers an increase of five per cent for this next three-year period, 2020-2022.

At a Joint Trade Union Movement press conference to respond to the budget at the Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union office in Barataria on October 3, Roget said it was as though the government did not respect the law and collective bargaining had been thrown out.

“Collective bargaining, the Industrial Relations Act, all of those things, they are part of the laws of TT.
"This government has displayed a patent disregard for collective bargaining. It is not negotiation at all, it is announcement: ‘Take it or leave it.'”

He described it as governance by fearmongering, bullying and decree, the government saying what it will do without discussions, negotiations or even looking at union proposals. He said the announcement was disrespectful and contemptuous, and showed the government did not care .

“This whole attempt to implement increases by decree – this morning I want to say on behalf of the unions, on behalf of all of the right-thinking unions, that, as part of our umbrella movement, we want to reject that outright.

“And in any event, it is woefully inadequate and it does not address the needs of the MTS workers, or the CEPEP workers, or the URP workers, the nurses, or any workers across the country.”