New offer to UWI lecturers today

Tertiary Education Minister Colm Imbert is expected to  present a new offer to the university administration today for a remuneration package for lecturers. Speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall yesterday, Imbert said the Cabinet committee (Public Sector Negotiating Committee) was expected to make a decision this morning. He would therefore be in a position today to write to the university on “the variation” to the offer which is already on the table. He said the “good news” was that there appeared to be an agreement on the quantum of money. Imbert stressed there was no truth to reports that the lecturers at the University of Trinidad and Tobago were getting more than those of the University of the West Indies.

He said UTT lecturers did not get the “multitudinous allowances” the UWI lecturers got. He said a UWI lecturer’s package with the offer on the table was superior (about $22,000 a month) to the package of his UTT equivalent (which was below $20,000 a month). On the fact that Cave Hill lecturers were receiving more than their St Augustine counterparts, Imbert said one could not make an exact comparison, but had to consider cost of living and purchasing power parity. The UN index showed that the cost of living in Barbados was higher than in Trinidad and Tobago.

Imbert said the negotiations were quite complex because they had built up a number of allowances — book, housing, travelling and sabbatical allowances. He said some of them were tied to one another, for example, the housing allowance was a percentage of the salary. Therefore, any adjustment in any figure affected the overall package “and you have to look at the numbers very carefully.” Imbert added that there was also a backpay component because the current negotiations covered  the period August 2002 to 2005.