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Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams says police officers under the leadership of the president of the Police Second Division Association Anand Ramesar would not “deliberately stay away from work without the approved leave.” Contacted by phone yesterday to respond to about today’s possible action by police, prison and fire officers to stay away from work to protest the Government’s failure to settle wage negotiations, Williams said he was unaware of the proposed action.
“If officers deliberately agreed to stay away from work without getting vacation leave, it will be an illegal act.” Williams was confident that the proposed action will not come off. “I am sure that the association with both its president and the secretary as attorneys, the officers will not agree to stay away from work.” “Police officers are not authorised to take protest action. It is illegal.” Repeated attempts to get a comment from National Security Minister Carl Alfonso proved futile. When contacted, he said he would return the call. Calls to his mobile phone were not answered.
Communications Minister Vasant Bharath said Finance and the Economy Minister Larry Howai would be the best minister to question on the issue but Howai could not be reached yesterday. At last week’s meeting with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) Stephanie Lewis, negotiating teams representing police and prison officers walked out because the CPO did not make an acceptable offer.
Soldiers on standby—NOC head
Director of the National Operations Centre Garvin Heerah says the Defence Force remains on alert for any untoward situation that may arise if the members if police, prison and fire officers make good on their threat to stay away from work today. Heerah was asked to comment on the matter in the wake of pending protest action by the officers over the failure of the government to make an appropriate proposal for new collective agreements with the respective negotiating teams.
Admitting that he was not aware of any plans to engage in protest action by members of the three protective arms, Heerah said contingency plans are in place should it happen. Yesterday, he said, the NOC had no information and to any additional contingency that would be put in place. —Richard Lord
Serious consequences—Al-Rawi
Opposition Senator and People’s National Movement (PNM) public relations officer Faris Al-Rawi said the Government “has played politics with every aspect of governance in this country.” “Crime and security, value for money and productivity are all issues at stake,” adding the Labour Minister Errol Mc Leod had boasted that the Government had successfully completed more wage negotiations that any other government in the country’s history.
Al-Rawi said that was based on information from the registry of collective agreements. “The fact is that this Government has done one-third of the number of wage negotiations conducted by the PNM in a similar period.” He said the present state of affairs may have resulted from the discontinuation of the Public Sector Negotiations Committee (PSNC). He said that committee was able to ensure that “the left hand of government and the right hand of state enterprise had parity and equality.”
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Labour Minister Errol Mc Leod dismissed Al Rawi’s claim that the Government had not settled the most wage negotiations. Mc Leod insisted the Government had settled more wage negotiations that any other in the past four and a half years. “There is no fact that Al-Rawi can bring to satisfy any claim that the PNM had settled more claims than we have over the corresponding period,” Mc Leod said.
