T&TEC workers get outstanding COLA payments from Dec

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has an­nounced that Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) work­ers rep­re­sent­ed by the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) will re­ceive out­stand­ing cost-of-liv­ing al­lowance (CO­LA) pay­ments on over­time earn­ings in two in­stal­ments, be­gin­ning in De­cem­ber.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion (Fi­nan­cial Year 2027) Bill, 2026, in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Padarath said the set­tle­ment would re­solve a long­stand­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions is­sue while pro­vid­ing ad­di­tion­al in­come to af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees.

He said the out­stand­ing CO­LA on over­time worked be­tween Jan­u­ary 1, 2015, and Sep­tem­ber 30, 2025, is es­ti­mat­ed to cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $15 mil­lion.

Un­der the pro­posed arrange­ment, the first pay­ment will be made on De­cem­ber 15, 2026, with the sec­ond sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 15, 2027.

“First tranche, De­cem­ber 15, 2026, go­ing home with more mon­ey in their pock­ets,” Padarath told the House, cred­it­ing the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion for mov­ing to re­solve the mat­ter.

He said Gov­ern­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to set­tling out­stand­ing oblig­a­tions owed to work­ers.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows agree­ments pre­vi­ous­ly reached be­tween T&TEC and the bar­gain­ing units of the OW­TU and the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA).

Padarath ex­plained that agree­ments signed dur­ing the fourth quar­ter of 2025 and the sec­ond quar­ter of 2026 cov­ered out­stand­ing CO­LA on ba­sic pay for ac­tive em­ploy­ees, as well as CO­LA on ba­sic pay and over­time for in­ac­tive em­ploy­ees. He said the re­sult­ing back­pay has al­ready been dis­bursed. How­ev­er, out­stand­ing CO­LA on over­time for ac­tive em­ploy­ees rep­re­sent­ed by the OW­TU re­mained un­re­solved.

Ac­cord­ing to Padarath, the is­sue was dis­cussed with the union on Sep­tem­ber 8, 2026, be­fore T&TEC pro­posed the two-in­stal­ment pay­ment plan.

Padarath said the set­tle­ment forms part of the Gov­ern­ment’s broad­er ef­fort to ad­dress long­stand­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions mat­ters with­in the pub­lic util­i­ties sec­tor.

He al­so an­nounced a sep­a­rate pay­ment arrange­ment for es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers rep­re­sent­ed by the EPA, who are owed CO­LA on over­time earn­ings.

Dis­cus­sions on that mat­ter have al­ready tak­en place, he said, with the first pay­ment pro­posed for Jan­u­ary 15, 2027, and the sec­ond for Feb­ru­ary 15, 2027.

The EPA arrange­ment re­mains sub­ject to the nec­es­sary ap­provals and the sign­ing of agree­ments with the bar­gain­ing unit.

“Once ap­proval is grant­ed, this long out­stand­ing CO­LA mat­ter will be con­clud­ed through signed agree­ments with the OW­TU and the EPA, re­spec­tive­ly,” Padarath said.

The min­is­ter al­so thanked his Cab­i­net col­leagues, in­clud­ing the min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for La Brea and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, for their role in ad­vanc­ing the dis­cus­sions.

Turn­ing to T&TEC’s per­for­mance, Padarath told Par­lia­ment that the com­mis­sion had re­duced its back­log of elec­tric­i­ty con­nec­tion re­quests from about 5,000 to few­er than 300.

He added that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to ac­cel­er­ate the na­tion­al street­light pro­gramme over the com­ing year, stress­ing that im­prove­ments should ben­e­fit com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go and not be con­cen­trat­ed sole­ly in cen­tral and south Trinidad.