Raise daily workers pay, or else!

In 1998, then Prime Minister Basdeo Panday decided not to implement recommendations for salary increases by the Salaries Review Commission (SRC) without the support of the Opposition People’s National Movement (PNM). However, after the PNM assumed government leadership in 2002 the Manning Cabinet subsequently approved the 1998 recommendations which raised salaries of government ministers by almost 100 percent. Among the increases, the Prime Minister’s salary moved from $15,000 to $25,000, the Opposition Leader from $8,000 to $14,000 and Ministers of Government from $12,000 to $18,000.

Earlier this year, salaries for ministers were again increased, based on a new SRC rating, to include a salary of $48,000 for the Prime Minister and $30,000 for ministers. The Oppositon Leader gets $38,000.

Last week, Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams, in his warning on inflationary pressures, advised Government and the private sector to watch their wage increases.

With this in mind, Robert Giuseppi, president general of the NUGFW yesterday gave the Government until Independence Day to deliver a revised compensation plan reflecting current market rate figures for daily paid workers.

Giuseppi said the union had no problem with pay increases for government ministers and members of Parliament as long as they performed their duties.

Despite the inclement weather, hundreds of NUGFW members gathered at Woodford Square, Port-of-Spain yesterday for a mass membership meeting where they protested against stalled salary negotiations between Chief Personnel Officer (CPO, Narieman Hosein-Ahamad and the NUGFW.

On Monday, a joint negotiating team of representatives from the Contract and General Workers Trade Union, Amalgamated Workers Union and the NUGFW walked out of a meeting with the CPO after about one hour of talks.

The parties met to discuss the CPO’s latest position regarding negotiations for the bargaining period 2005 to 2007. In a release on Monday, the NUGFW said after three months of talks with the CPO the Government still offered a wage rate for 2007 that was less than the wage rate of 2001.

In addressing the rally, Giuseppi said the union had been pushed into a “higher action mode and there will be no more talks” with the CPO. He said during 1987 to 1992, the Government reduced salaries by ten percent. From 1994 to 1995, he said, over 8,000 daily paid workers represented by the union were sent home on voluntary separation employment packages. He added that from 1997 to 2001, the Government fired 1,500 daily rated workers from the Ministry of Works and Transport in an attempt to weaken the union’s membership.

“It is the attack after attack that weakens the union,” he said.

Giuseppi said the CPO had offered an increase in the daily salary of labourers from $138.50 to $141 for 2005 after the union asked for an increase of $179 which was according to the average market rate.