Tancoo: Only PSA to benefit from Christmas backpay

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says on­ly the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) will re­ceive back­pay pay­ments this year.

Tan­coo made the com­ment out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, as he ad­dressed con­cerns by the Con­trac­tors and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Union (CG­WU), who has called on the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to en­sure at least some of the ar­rears owed to their mem­bers fol­low­ing com­plet­ed col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments are paid in cash on or be­fore De­cem­ber 22.

Their re­quest comes af­ter it was an­nounced the PSA would get part of their back­pay in cash be­fore Christ­mas.

Asked if the CG­WU would al­so get their wish, Tan­coo said: “As far as I’m aware, based on con­ver­sa­tion with the CPO, no arrange­ments were made for back­pay for any unions oth­er than the PSA for De­cem­ber pe­ri­od.”

On Thurs­day, CG­WU pres­i­dent gen­er­al Er­mine De Bique Meade called on Tan­coo to keep the promise he made when he pre­sent­ed the 2025/2026 Bud­get on Oc­to­ber 13. Back then, Tan­coo had said Gov­ern­ment would rat­i­fy agree­ments signed in April for the Teach­ing Ser­vice, De­fence Force, and the Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tions. The cor­po­ra­tions, which em­ploy some 800 work­ers, are rep­re­sent­ed by CG­WU.

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue yes­ter­day, Tan­coo said the oth­er union mat­ters would most like­ly come ear­ly next year.

“The arrange­ments will be rat­i­fied, and I ex­pect ful­ly that pay­ments will be made with­in the first quar­ter. Start­ing with the first quar­ter, the new salaries will be paid, start­ing with the first quar­ter of cal­en­dar 2026.”

He said the in­crease in salaries will be for all the oth­er unions that would have agreed and would have been rat­i­fied, as was promised in the bud­get.

Dur­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the PSA and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al, it was sug­gest­ed that the PSA re­ceive part of the ar­rears in cash and the rest in “non-cash” in­cen­tives. When asked what the non-cash of­fer meant, Tan­coo said the mat­ter is still be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed.

“That is sub­ject to ne­go­ti­a­tions, and we’ll treat with that at that stage.”

The PSA, how­ev­er, has sound­ly re­ject­ed the non-cash of­fer.

Tan­coo added that Gov­ern­ment has al­ready set aside the pay­ment for the PSA for a par­tial pay­ment for their back­pay. He said ne­go­ti­a­tions are still on­go­ing when asked if Gov­ern­ment could af­ford the $3.8 bil­lion pay­out to the PSA.

Al­so com­ment­ing on the is­sue of unions and salary ne­go­ti­a­tions was Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der.

Re­spond­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent ASP Ish­mael Pitt, who called him a hyp­ocrite for dis­agree­ing that the po­lice should not get the same of­fer as PSA retroac­tive­ly, El­der said: “A signed set­tle­ment is what it is, a signed set­tle­ment. If there are oth­er unions that have not yet signed for four per cent and want to ne­go­ti­ate and want 15 per cent, that is OK, you can ask for that.

“But if you signed for four per cent. You have that ex­e­cut­ed, you went to the court, you reg­is­tered your agree­ment, how could you say you don’t want four again you want ten, be­cause some­body else get ten. That is not fair and that his hyp­o­crit­i­cal.”

Speak­ing in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the ne­go­ti­a­tion be­tween the PSA and state goes to the heart of trust in gov­er­nance and the dig­ni­ty of more than 16,000 pub­lic of­fi­cers.

She boast­ed that dur­ing Gov­ern­ment’s 2025 cam­paign, there was a com­mit­ment un­der her lead­er­ship to end the wage freeze and set­tle with the PSA and have so.

“I would like the Hansard to re­flect, Mr Speak­er, promis­es made, promis­es kept and by Christ­mas, mean­ing­ful re­lief will come and promis­es will be de­liv­ered. The 10 per cent set­tle­ment will be ho­n­oured. A cash ad­vance will be paid be­fore Christ­mas, and the re­main­ing ar­rears will be fi­nalised through law­ful ne­go­ti­a­tions by the par­ties, the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion and the CPO.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment stands firm­ly be­hind the set­tle­ment and re­lief for the work­ers. She sought to set the wor­ried PSA mem­bers at ease, telling both the CPO and PSA to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions in the best in­ter­ests of all.

“Re­cent ex­changes be­tween the PSA and the CPO have cre­at­ed some con­cern amongst work­ers and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Strong views are nor­mal af­ter years with­out any progress. How­ev­er, progress is best achieved through calm, re­spect­ful di­a­logue, and I there­fore en­cour­age all par­ties to al­low the es­tab­lished process to pro­ceed pro­fes­sion­al­ly and re­spon­si­bly.”