DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) is now sig­nalling a will­ing­ness to find com­mon ground with the Gov­ern­ment over bil­lions of dol­lars in out­stand­ing wage ar­rears, af­ter pre­vi­ous­ly hold­ing firm on its de­mand for a greater cash com­po­nent.

PSA pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas hint­ed to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the union re­mains open to ne­go­ti­a­tion if the Gov­ern­ment does not ac­cept its coun­ter­pro­pos­al.

Asked whether the PSA is pre­pared to move from its cur­rent po­si­tion, Thomas said: “We are will­ing to ac­cept a rea­son­able, fair and jus­ti­fi­able set­tle­ment.”

The PSA and Gov­ern­ment agreed to a ten per cent wage in­crease in De­cem­ber 2025, cov­er­ing the 2014–2016 and 2017–2019 bar­gain­ing pe­ri­ods.

The out­stand­ing is­sue is how the ar­rears aris­ing from those agree­ments will be set­tled.

The Gov­ern­ment has pro­posed that 40 per cent be paid in cash, with the re­main­ing 60 per cent dealt with through non-cash mea­sures. The PSA re­ject­ed that arrange­ment and has in­stead pro­posed 60 per cent in cash, with 40 per cent as de­ferred cash.

The union has al­so put for­ward eq­ui­ty in State-owned, pub­licly trad­ed as­sets as an­oth­er op­tion, along with mea­sures in­clud­ing food cards and fu­el as­sis­tance.

Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al said the two sides re­main en­gaged on the is­sue.

“The State has main­tained through the Of­fice of the CPO that the ar­rears must be dealt with through a mix of cash and non-cash, that’s 40 per cent cash and 60 per cent non-cash. The PSA has re­ject­ed that. And so those dis­cus­sions are still on­go­ing.

“We were sup­posed to have a meet­ing last week. There was a mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We didn’t re­ceive the PSA’s ac­cep­tance of the date. So, we are look­ing to meet with them hope­ful­ly some­time next week.”

The next meet­ing be­tween the PSA and the CPO is sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 9. Thomas said the union ex­pects to re­ceive the CPO’s re­sponse to its coun­ter­pro­pos­al at that meet­ing.

For­mer PSA pres­i­dent Clyde Weath­er­head said the mat­ter could even­tu­al­ly move be­yond ne­go­ti­a­tions if the two sides fail to reach an agree­ment.

“If there is no agree­ment, then they could re­port a dis­pute to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, who di­rects the CPO and he has no oblig­a­tion to do any­thing ex­cept let some time pass and then send the dis­pute down to the Spe­cial Tri­bunal... So, I guess it could reach the Spe­cial Tri­bunal. But this thing about cash and non-cash in re­la­tion to col­lec­tive agree­ment ne­go­ti­a­tions such as this is some­thing com­plete­ly alien to the his­to­ry of the pub­lic ser­vice, the pub­lic sec­tor, and the PSA in par­tic­u­lar.”

Weath­er­head al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as the po­lit­i­cal frag­men­ta­tion of the trade union move­ment.

“The trade union move­ment has been dis­unit­ed for quite a while. The is­sue of the po­lit­i­cal game play­ing and unions mak­ing po­lit­i­cal deals, that is not col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing.

“If you make a deal with the UNC when they’re not in of­fice, can you en­force it? You can’t en­force an agree­ment with a po­lit­i­cal par­ty. So, un­less you have an agree­ment af­ter­wards, if that par­ty is in gov­ern­ment, and then you have to ne­go­ti­ate with the CPO or with the em­ploy­er, de­pend­ing on where you are, and you have a col­lec­tive agree­ment signed, then you have an agree­ment.

“The same thing hap­pened in 2010. It hap­pened in 2015. And it is hap­pen­ing now. So, a po­lit­i­cal coali­tion is not a uni­ty of the trade union move­ment.”

For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning has al­so weighed in on the dis­pute, di­rect­ly ad­dress­ing Thomas in a so­cial me­dia post.

Man­ning ar­gued that pub­lic ser­vants may see the ben­e­fit of the ten per cent wage in­crease re­duced by tax­es and Na­tion­al In­sur­ance con­tri­bu­tions.

He ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of “giv­ing with one hand and take, take, take, take… with the oth­er” and told Thomas to “Tell them the truth.”

Man­ning al­so ques­tioned whether Thomas would “just eat ah food and leave the PSA mem­ber­ship to suf­fer.”

The PSA set­tle­ment is ex­pect­ed to cost the State $3.8 bil­lion in back­pay, with a fur­ther $420 mil­lion added an­nu­al­ly to re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture.