Unions open to dialogue with PM, but insist on collective talks

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Trade unions have called out Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for urg­ing them to work with the Gov­ern­ment to set­tle out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions, say­ing they have con­sis­tent­ly called for a col­lec­tive meet­ing with her to ad­dress un­re­solved labour mat­ters.

The re­sponse fol­lows Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment on Sat­ur­day, a day af­ter 12 trade unions demon­strat­ed in Port-of-Spain.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the protest in a so­cial me­dia post and urged unions to set aside what she de­scribed as per­son­al in­ter­ests and work with the Gov­ern­ment.

She point­ed to a $66.1 mil­lion set­tle­ment be­tween Pow­er­Gen and the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), which will see ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 work­ers re­ceive out­stand­ing pay­ments by De­cem­ber 15.

The agree­ment ends an in­dus­tri­al dis­pute dat­ing back to 2015 and pro­vides for a nine per cent wage in­crease over five years, cov­er­ing the 2016–2017 and 2018–2020 bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) pres­i­dent gen­er­al Michael An­nisette said the labour move­ment was not seek­ing to un­der­mine the prime min­is­ter or her ad­min­is­tra­tion, but want­ed mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment on is­sues af­fect­ing work­ers and the wider coun­try.

“And I’m telling the Prime Min­is­ter, all right, that we are pre­pared to meet in the morn­ing in the best in­ter­est of the work­ers that we rep­re­sent, and not on­ly the work­ers. It’s not about wages on­ly, but a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go. How can we work to­geth­er in or­der for us to move this coun­try for­ward, to re­alise the true po­ten­tial of our so­ci­ety?” An­nisette said.

“We have to be big enough to be able to put aside what­ev­er dif­fer­ences that we may have, re­al or per­ceived, in the best in­ter­est of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he added.

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) al­so reaf­firmed its will­ing­ness to meet with Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the rel­e­vant line min­is­ter to dis­cuss mat­ters af­fect­ing its mem­bers and the wider work­ing class.

In a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia, CWU sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer said tri­par­tite en­gage­ment be­tween the Gov­ern­ment, em­ploy­ers and trade unions re­mained es­sen­tial to in­dus­tri­al peace, eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Ogeer stressed, how­ev­er, that any en­gage­ment must al­low for frank and open dis­cus­sion be­tween the par­ties.

“Mean­ing­ful di­a­logue can­not flour­ish in an en­vi­ron­ment where par­ties feel in­tim­i­dat­ed, dis­missed or con­strained from freely ex­press­ing their po­si­tions,” she said.

“Should the Gov­ern­ment gen­uine­ly favour such dis­course, found­ed up­on mu­tu­al re­spect, open­ness and the will­ing­ness to lis­ten, the CWU re­mains con­fi­dent that con­struc­tive en­gage­ment can pro­duce mean­ing­ful out­comes in the na­tion­al in­ter­est,” she added.

The union al­so re­ject­ed any sug­ges­tion that trade unions were ad­ver­saries of the State or po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, reaf­firm­ing their role in rep­re­sent­ing work­ers.

“We are an in­de­pen­dent de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tion whose fun­da­men­tal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to rep­re­sent, de­fend and ad­vance the rights and in­ter­ests of work­ers we rep­re­sent,” Ogeer said.

Mean­while, An­nisette warned that unions would con­tin­ue to ex­er­cise their right to protest if they con­clud­ed that mean­ing­ful di­a­logue with the Gov­ern­ment was ab­sent.

“As long as we be­lieve that there isn’t any, what I would want to call mean­ing­ful changes, as long as we con­clude there isn’t any mean­ing­ful di­a­logue, and/or en­gage­ment, or, as the ILO says, so­cial di­a­logue with the labour move­ment and by ex­ten­sion stake­hold­ers, we re­serve the right to ex­press a con­trary view and to do what the labour move­ment does. But it doesn’t mean, nec­es­sar­i­ly, that we are not open to di­a­logue with this gov­ern­ment and the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter,” he said.

His com­ments come amid re­peat­ed claims by Per­sad-Bisses­sar that the unions’ protest was dri­ven by ha­tred and racism.