Clyde Elder’s comments spark union backlash over wage fairness

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

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A grow­ing cho­rus of trade union lead­ers is de­nounc­ing re­cent state­ments sug­gest­ing that on­ly po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned unions—or those that pur­sued lit­i­ga­tion—should ben­e­fit from im­proved wage of­fers, warn­ing that such a shift threat­ens to desta­bilise the coun­try’s long-stand­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions frame­work.

The back­lash was trig­gered by com­ments from Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and for­mer trade union­ist Clyde El­der, who im­plied that TSTT work­ers and oth­er groups may not be en­ti­tled to a pro­posed ten per cent in­crease be­cause their unions do not be­long to what he de­scribed as a “coali­tion of in­ter­est.”

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union (CWU) was first to re­spond, ac­cus­ing El­der of push­ing a nar­ra­tive that un­der­mines labour in­de­pen­dence and risks con­vert­ing col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing in­to a po­lit­i­cal­ly dri­ven ex­er­cise.

CWU Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer said El­der’s stance was “deeply trou­bling” and con­trary to the prin­ci­ples he once de­fend­ed.

“No union leader—past or present—should im­ply that work­ers ought to be pe­nalised be­cause their union re­fus­es to align po­lit­i­cal­ly,” Ogeer said, warn­ing that such a mind­set opens the door to “po­lit­i­cal co­er­cion” dis­guised as in­dus­tri­al pol­i­cy. She added that when labour lead­ers ap­pear to sup­port State agen­das, it erodes work­er trust and cre­ates con­di­tions ripe for con­flict.

That con­cern was echoed by Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) Pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son, who de­scribed the sug­ges­tion of se­lec­tive in­creas­es as “a dan­ger­ous de­vi­a­tion” from na­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion norms. He ar­gued that seg­ment­ing work­ers by ad­min­is­tra­tive cat­e­go­ry or per­ceived po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty sets a prece­dent that could frac­ture the pub­lic sec­tor.

“Com­pen­sa­tion should re­flect du­ties, re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and the cost of liv­ing, not par­tic­i­pa­tion in po­lit­i­cal or strate­gic al­liances,” Richard­son said, adding that ex­clud­ing state-en­ter­prise work­ers—many al­ready earn­ing be­low mar­ket rates—would on­ly deep­en in­equal­i­ty.

Prison Of­fi­cers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (POA) Pres­i­dent Ger­ard Gor­don al­so re­ject­ed El­der’s re­marks, call­ing them “fun­da­men­tal­ly un­fair.” He said unions like his ac­cept­ed the pre­vi­ous four per cent set­tle­ment un­der co­er­cive con­di­tions, in­clud­ing the threat of a decade-long tri­bunal judg­ment, not be­cause the of­fer was just.

“To now hold those de­ci­sions against us is un­just,” he said, stress­ing that the POA is not seek­ing to re­open past agree­ments but ex­pects time­ly ne­go­ti­a­tions for out­stand­ing pe­ri­ods. Gor­don warned that im­ply­ing on­ly cer­tain unions de­serve bet­ter ad­just­ments risks cre­at­ing di­vi­sion with­in the labour move­ment and dis­re­gards the sac­ri­fices made by front­line of­fi­cers.

Steel Work­ers’ Union (SWUTT) Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley added to the crit­i­cism, say­ing the claim that po­lit­i­cal align­ment could in­flu­ence wage out­comes is “deeply trou­bling” and con­tra­dicts the very foun­da­tions of col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing. He cau­tioned that re­duc­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions to po­lit­i­cal re­ward or pun­ish­ment would en­cour­age a cul­ture of “col­lec­tive beg­ging” rather than prin­ci­pled ad­vo­ca­cy.

Bai­ley not­ed that the PSA’s re­cent ten per cent set­tle­ment—achieved through ne­go­ti­a­tion and ac­tion—now forms the bench­mark for oth­er unions, con­sis­tent with long­stand­ing cus­tom and prac­tice.

Labour rep­re­sen­ta­tives in­sist­ed that wage ne­go­ti­a­tions must re­main free of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, trans­par­ent, and ground­ed in fair­ness. Any at­tempt to con­di­tion wage jus­tice on po­lit­i­cal align­ment, they warned, risked un­der­min­ing work­er con­fi­dence, desta­bil­is­ing in­dus­tri­al peace, and weak­en­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ac­count­abil­i­ty.