Frus­tra­tion and anger are mount­ing among work­ers of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) over what they say are stalled wage ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The work­ers vent­ed their frus­tra­tions on the front steps of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion yes­ter­day af­ter they were told that the line min­is­ter, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, had sent di­rec­tives in the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The UWI staff protest­ed at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus two weeks ago and the ac­tion by the work­ers brought the UWI man­age­ment to the ta­ble.

The Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union, which rep­re­sents both month­ly and dai­ly-paid work­ers, has ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of dis­play­ing a dis­mis­sive and dis­re­spect­ful at­ti­tude at the bar­gain­ing ta­ble, leav­ing them with no choice but to es­ca­late their ac­tions in the com­ing weeks.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence, Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get said he was dis­ap­point­ed with the lack of progress in salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.

“There has been no move­ment,” Ro­get stat­ed. “We are wait­ing for a re­sponse that en­cour­ages good col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing, but in­stead, we are met with a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ at­ti­tude. The lev­el of dis­re­spect is un­ac­cept­able.”

The union has warned of fur­ther protests lead­ing up to the Gen­er­al Elec­tion on April 28, if ne­go­ti­a­tions re­main stag­nant.

“We wish the 28th was to­mor­row so we could deal with them. The dis­re­spect can­not con­tin­ue. If they won’t meet us at the ta­ble, we’ll take to the streets and es­ca­late our ac­tions—all with­in the law,” Ro­get said.

Work­ers said they are par­tic­u­lar­ly out­raged over what they la­belled as the Gov­ern­ment’s re­luc­tance to re­con­sid­er the four per cent wage in­crease, which has re­mained un­changed for over six years.

They ar­gue that in­fla­tion has sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced their pur­chas­ing pow­er, mak­ing it in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to meet ba­sic needs.

“Four per cent over six years? That is noth­ing. In­fla­tion has out­stripped that many times over,” Ro­get said. “Work­ers have fam­i­lies to feed, chil­dren to send to school, and ris­ing liv­ing costs to deal with. Mean­while, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters con­tin­ue to en­joy ex­trav­a­gant al­lowances.”

The on­go­ing salary dis­pute dates back to ne­go­ti­a­tions from 2007 for UTT work­ers and from 2014–2016 and 2015–2017 for UWI work­ers. The union crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment for these long-stand­ing is­sues still per­sist­ing.

“The PNM Gov­ern­ment has ac­cept­ed all the in­creas­es for them­selves, but there’s noth­ing for the work­ers who gen­er­ate the wealth, who pay the tax­es, who make the sys­tem func­tion. It’s bla­tant dis­re­spect.”

The union is call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, to in­ter­vene im­me­di­ate­ly, de­mand­ing a res­o­lu­tion be­fore their pa­tience runs out.

“It’s 2025, and we’re still bat­tling for fair wages from as far back as 2007. That is un­ac­cept­able. The Gov­ern­ment must come down from their high horse and ad­dress this is­sue, or we will en­sure they have no choice but to lis­ten,” Ro­get said.