RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Hun­dreds of work­ers from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA), Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Con­tract and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union staged a lunchtime protest yes­ter­day as they con­demned the gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to pay long-over­due salary in­creas­es.

The demon­stra­tion, or­gan­ised by the TTNNA, saw health­care work­ers gath­er out­side the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal dur­ing their lunch break in a peace­ful show of sol­i­dar­i­ty. While some work­ers held up plac­ards and sang union songs, oth­ers opt­ed to stay in the hos­pi­tal cor­ri­dors look­ing on.

Speak­ing dur­ing the protest, TTNNA pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art said nurs­es were de­mand­ing clar­i­ty from the gov­ern­ment over out­stand­ing in­creas­es.

“All we are ask­ing for is for the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance and the Min­is­ter of Health to in­di­cate when our work­ers will be paid and what per­cent­age they will be paid for. It’s a sim­ple re­quest,” Stu­art said.

He added that health­care work­ers have not re­ceived any salary in­crease in more than a decade.

“Doc­tors, nurs­es, phar­ma­cists, ward at­ten­dants—every health­care work­er in the re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ties re­mains on 2013 salaries,” Stu­art said.

“Yet, staff with­in the Min­istry of Health have al­ready re­ceived the ten per cent wage in­crease and are cur­rent­ly on 2019 salaries,” he added.

Stu­art de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as deeply un­fair, not­ing that front­line work­ers are the ones still wait­ing for ad­just­ments to their pay.

The protest comes amid on­go­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween pub­lic sec­tor unions and Gov­ern­ment over the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the ten per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants. He warned that fur­ther in­dus­tri­al ac­tion is planned for April 10 if the is­sue re­mains un­re­solved.

Ear­li­er this week, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo in­di­cat­ed that the gov­ern­ment had be­gun ad­dress­ing out­stand­ing pay­ments for some cat­e­gories of work­ers, in­clud­ing those with­in min­istries.

How­ev­er, unions say em­ploy­ees of the Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties have yet to re­ceive clear time­lines for their salary ad­just­ments.

Stu­art said yes­ter­day’s demon­stra­tion was con­duct­ed in line with the law, even as the coun­try re­mains un­der a State of Emer­gency.

“The In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act pro­vides for peace­ful protest ac­tion and pick­et­ing. What you are see­ing here to­day has noth­ing to do with crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty,” he said.

He not­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion had for­mal­ly no­ti­fied the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, John Je­re­mie and the Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, of the planned protest, and of­fi­cers were present to en­sure the demon­stra­tion re­mained or­der­ly.

De­spite the protest, Stu­art said pa­tient care at the hos­pi­tal was not af­fect­ed.

TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Bevin Ashe said it was not easy liv­ing on 2013 salaries when the cost of liv­ing was high.

He said TTUTA was al­so not hear­ing any up­dates from the line Min­is­ter about salary up­grades.

Pres­i­dent of the Con­tract and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union Er­mine De Bique-Meade called on work­ers to unite, say­ing they must band to­geth­er and fight for recog­ni­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion by the trade union lead­ers.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, and did not get a re­sponse un­til press time.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe said the min­istry recog­nis­es the valu­able con­tri­bu­tions of RHA work­ers and shares their de­sire for fair and time­ly con­sid­er­a­tion of mat­ters.

“We are aware that the work of health­care pro­fes­sion­als is no easy task, but we ask the work­ers for their pa­tience as the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing process with all reg­is­tered ma­jor­i­ty unions re­ceives due at­ten­tion from all rel­e­vant par­ties,” Dr Bo­doe added.