PSA rejects CPO’s ‘best and final offer’

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) has re­ject­ed what Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Ret’d Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s “best and fi­nal of­fer” to set­tle out­stand­ing pub­lic sec­tor ar­rears and is in­stead propos­ing more cash pay­ments and full cash set­tle­ments for re­tirees.

The ne­go­ti­a­tions cov­er the pe­ri­od 2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019.

In a mes­sage to mem­bers yes­ter­day, PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas said the as­so­ci­a­tion re­ject­ed both an ini­tial pro­pos­al made on Jan­u­ary 30 and a re­vised of­fer pre­sent­ed dur­ing dis­cus­sions last Fri­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the PSA, the orig­i­nal pro­pos­al in­clud­ed 40 per cent cash, paid over three fis­cal pe­ri­ods, and 60 per cent non-cash ben­e­fits.

Those non-cash op­tions in­clud­ed off­sets for state mort­gage and rental oblig­a­tions through the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Bank, out­stand­ing tax li­a­bil­i­ties, tu­ition fees at state in­sti­tu­tions, med­ical cov­er­age, tax con­ces­sions on new and roll-on/roll-off ve­hi­cles, and con­vert­ing cash en­ti­tle­ments in­to leave.

The PSA said it re­ject­ed that pro­pos­al and coun­tered with an of­fer of 80 per cent cash and 20 per cent de­ferred cash through in­ter­est-bear­ing bonds.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so pro­posed set­tling out­stand­ing med­ical plan debt, pref­er­en­tial ac­cess to HDC hous­ing, and ac­cess to res­i­den­tial and agri­cul­tur­al lands across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The union said the re­vised pro­pos­al pre­sent­ed yes­ter­day large­ly re­mained the same but in­clud­ed a pro­vi­sion for re­tirees to re­ceive full cash ar­rears on­ly up to 2018, with sub­se­quent pay­ments through non-cash arrange­ments.

The PSA said it re­ject­ed that pro­pos­al and main­tained that all re­tirees should re­ceive their ar­rears en­tire­ly in cash.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said it al­so pro­posed us­ing ar­rears to­ward mort­gage oblig­a­tions while freez­ing month­ly mort­gage salary de­duc­tions for a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od.

Oth­er pro­pos­als in­clud­ed con­vert­ing cash en­ti­tle­ments in­to leave, re­lief from month­ly in­come tax pay­ments, su­per­mar­ket and fu­el cred­it fa­cil­i­ties, ac­cess to land, and ap­ply­ing ar­rears to­ward pen­sion en­ti­tle­ments.

The PSA said cash pay­ments should be com­plet­ed by March 31, 2027.

In a re­lease Fri­day, the CPO said the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer re­mains 40 per cent cash and 60 per cent non-cash ben­e­fits, with an es­ti­mat­ed set­tle­ment val­ue of $3.8 bil­lion.

The CPO al­so said re­tirees would re­ceive their ar­rears for the pe­ri­od 2014 to 2018 in cash, while pay­ments would be made over two to three fi­nan­cial years.

Din­di­al said the State faced macro­eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and gave the PSA four weeks to com­mu­ni­cate its po­si­tion.

The union said it will sub­mit re­vised pro­pos­als in writ­ing on Mon­day, in­clud­ing a set­tle­ment struc­ture of 60 per cent cash and 40 per cent de­ferred cash, along­side eq­ui­ty in state-owned pub­licly trad­ed as­sets as a de­ferred pay­ment op­tion.