Imbert: I said wage restraint not wage freeze

Addressing a news conference at the Eric Williams Financial Complex in Port-of-Spain, following the release of a story on CNC3 which stated he made a wage freeze announcement at the 2016 High Level Caribbean Forum at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, earlier in the day, Imbert said, “The word I used was wage restraint...not wage freeze.

“Wage restraint is a long way away from a wage freeze. There is a fine line in all of these things and one has to be very, very careful in interpretation.” Telling reporters he was alerted to the erroneous CNC3 story by a member of a major trade union and asked to clarify this statement, Imbert declared, “The PNM Government has no policy of a wage freeze.

That in any event would have to be a Cabinet decision. No single minister can make a decision like that without Cabinet agreement.” Saying he participated in a panel discussion on the challenges facing Caribbean economies, Imbert said, “In my case, I spoke about the large decline in petroleum revenues where we had a 90 percent fall in petroleum revenues.

I spoke about the financial challenges facing TT.” The minister said he also spoke about wage increases given to trade unions by the former People’s Partnership (PP) government last year and the significant fiscal deficit the PNM now has to deal with.

Imbert said at this point in the discussion, “I said we will have to exercise wage restraint and I did indicate that we will be telling the unions going forward that we will be starting the negotiations by offering them zero.” He added his words were taken out of context and reported by CNC3 as: “Imbert said there is a wage freeze.” Saying these matters are “very, very sensitive”, the minister added, “You can’t take the word restraint and change it into the word freeze.” “Everybody knows what freeze means. Freeze means you’re not budging. There is no indication on our side that we are not going to move at all.” Imbert further explained there is a starting point in all negotiations and said if a union was to propose a 15 percent wage increase, the Government will start with an offer of zero and both sides would eventually settle somewhere in the middle. While he could not predict what level would be agreed upon in such a hypothetical situation, Imbert said, “What I can say is that it will be less than 14 percent because we can’t continue like that and that is all I was saying.” Reiterating zero percent is the offer Government would start at, Imbert stressed, “That is the start.

That cannot be the end.” He added it was not logical that anyone, “goes into a negotiation and stays at the starting point.” He said the silver lining of, “this story about a so called wage freeze”, was that it gave him the opportunity to announce that Government will settle wage negotiations between TT Electricity Commission (TTEC) and the Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), which had been dragging on for nearly nine months.

Stating the OWTU did not receive any wage increase in the last three years under the then People’s Partnership administration, Imbert said TTEC and the union had unofficially agreed to a ten percent wage increase. He said while Government was a little hesitant at first, it was important this matter be settled so that other matters could be addressed.

Indicating there was also a job re-classification at TTEC as well, the financial impact of this settlement going back three to four years, is $500 million.