PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC -The Trinidad and Tobago Airline Pilots Affiliation (TTALPA) Monday warned of attainable disruptions to the service of the state-owned Caribbean Airways (CAL) after it accused the airline’s administration of searching for to hijack the negotiations over wage will increase for pilots.
“In a nutshell, the board of Caribbean Airways has hijacked the negotiations. Final Friday, the negotiation groups between Caribbean Airways and TTALPA had been imagined to log off on a collective settlement of agreed gadgets popping out of Mr. Imbert’s (Finance Minister) announcement on the thirtieth of October.
“Sadly, after they despatched us the draft, sure articles had been lacking from the collective settlement, and after we met with them, they stated it was an error,” TTALP Industrial Relations Officer Timothy Bailey advised a information convention.
“We all know this can be a season the place you’ve got loads of touring, our family members are coming into the nation, and so forth. and we don’t wish to be an impediment, however we now have reached the purpose the place sufficient is sufficient, and we’re asking good industrial relations frequent sense prevail, and the board reverts to the preliminary place of their negotiations which was that they had been on settlement with all positions that the affiliation had put ahead for the ultimate settlement of those negotiations.”
Bailey advised reporters that December 6 had been put aside as a date for the signing of the settlement however that “just a few days earlier than, the corporate would have written to us and stated that the board had a brand new place, and their view is that two of the articles ought to have been stored as unresolved.”
He stated that this meant that the articles would have been eliminated “as a result of they’re articles present within the present settlement, and because of that, they moved the goalpost on us.
“They’ve put us ready of both take it or depart it, and …we requested them to attend a gathering with us….because the determination got here from the board stage, they declined that assembly.
‘This morning, earlier than we’d have had this press convention, the affiliation chairman would have been referred to as out of his mattress to fulfill with the corporate’s chief govt officer,” he stated, noting that the articles in query had been in place since 2021.
Final month, CAL stated it welcomed Finance Minister Colm Imbert’s announcement that he had approved the supply it has really useful to TTALPA to settle ongoing wage negotiations.
“As per the assertion from the Minister issued on October thirtieth, 2024, the supply includes a 4 p.c enhance in salaries to cowl the interval from September 2015 to August 2020. As well as, there’s the supply of an extra wage enhance to cowl September 2020 to August 2023,” CAL stated in a press release.
It remained “optimistic {that a} passable conclusion may be reached on this dispute and all events can direct their full focus to the continued success and development of the airline.”
CAL pilots have been staging a number of protests over what they described as failed wage negotiations with the airline in latest weeks. Additionally they expressed their disappointment on the want for a response to a letter hand-delivered to Imbert’s workplace on October 14.
The letter contained proposals for the 2015-2020 negotiation interval, because the pilots are working below the phrases and circumstances of a collective labor settlement for 2010-2015.
In an October assertion, Imbert stated that CAL had knowledgeable him that whereas the airline’s figures for public dissemination concerning the pilots’ salaries had been right, the determine for pilots’ allowances supplied by CAL wanted to be corrected.
“It’s anticipated that CAL will promptly right that inaccuracy. Nevertheless, having given this dispute cautious consideration, within the curiosity of excellent industrial relations, the Minister of Finance has as we speak approved Caribbean Airways to settle the September 2015 to August 2020 interval with TTALPA with a 4 p.c enhance in salaries and to supply the pilots an extra 4 p.c enhance in salaries for the following bargaining interval, that’s to say, the September 2020 to August 2023 interval,” Imbert stated then.
Bailey stated Imbert “did his job” and that administration has “now come and is trying to carry the pilots hostage by hijacking the negotiations and shifting the purpose publish at 11 and a half “hours.”