(Trinidad Guardian) The Banking, Insurance and General Workers’ Union (BIGWU) on Monday announced a 33 per cent pay hike for employees of the Public Services Credit Union. And even after the conclusion of negotiations for nine groups — all to receive over ten per cent in new collective bargaining agreements in the financial and service sector — BIGWU president Vincent Cabrera says there were still some players holding on to a “wage-restraint ideology.” He was speaking at a media conference at the Kapok Hotel, Maraval, on Monday, after signing off on the 33 per cent increase for the period 2009 to 2012.He said Republic Bank, American Life and General Insurance Company (Algico) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) were reluctant to agree to just and fair salary increases even though their organisations were more profitable than those for whose workers he had successfully bargained.
Cabrera said a recent news report showed CEOs and senior managers of private companies received increases close to 20 per cent a year. He said all the increases he successfully concluded in collective bargaining processes did not involve politicians. He added: “The CEOs and senior managers of this country were having increases in the vicinity of 20 per cent a year. “This means that the labour market of Trinidad and Tobago is one of the fundamental contributors to inequity in the society, and we at present, after having all these victories in the financial and service sector, are faced with some players in the financial sector who, unlike these players, are holding on to this wage-restraint ideology.”
