What a difference a month or two or even a week makes.
On either side of a general election and “regime change,” the perspectives on issues change; or so we are supposed to believe.
Last weekend, on his way out of the country, Prime Minister Rowley commended his new Board of the National Gas Company (NGC) for its decision to decree a wage freeze and bonus cut on the workers in the company and all its subsidiaries.
He hailed this unilateral interference in the workers’ terms and conditions of employment of which they were “informed” by company email, as “sensible.”
A few days later he was joined in his support of this action by the recent-former energy minister.
Why the wage freeze/pay cut imposition?
According to the Board of the NGC, this pre-emptive strike against the workers’ incomes was necessary because this cash cow for the state was faced with “low energy prices.”
The company claimed its profits were in decline from $6 billion in 2010 to $3 billion this year.
This begs the question: Is the decline in the NGC profits as a result of the workers’ pay? This is an argument that is as old as the history of booms and busts that are a constant feature of the economic system which is driven by the profit motive.
The NGC board and the PM need to clarify what really is the reason for this decree on pay for the workers. Is it because of “low energy prices” or because of “smaller profits?”
In either case, the workers’ pay determines neither of these outcomes.
A university professor has advanced this false argument further by calling for a national wage freeze in light of economic and fiscal decline brought about by the massive drop in oil and gas prices in the last year.
NGC’s management by decree is draconian
In the world of modern labour relations, it is neither sensible nor good industrial relations practice for an employer to interfere with its workers’ pay or pay determination by unilateral action.
In T&T’s industrial relations system, this would be an Industrial Relations Offence if these workers were represented by a recognised majority union. The company would be fined and its managers open to criminal charges if the NGC was unionised.
The last time a Government acted by unilateral edict to cut state employees pay, it was found guilty of IROs in several bargaining units and of breach of the constitutional rights of its
public servants. That was in the 1986-89 period.
The excuse was the same—declining economic fortunes o the workers had to pay with their wages and jobs.
This is a situation with which the current Labour Minister would be very familiar with since it was her union which got the Hood-Caesar decision in the High Court and several IRO decisions in the Industrial Court.
In this case, the present Government has chosen to launch its “austerity” programme against the NGC workers, who cannot file IRO claims.
They have deliberately chosen the line of least resistance to introduce this round of offloading the burden of chronic crisis onto the workers’ backs.
In the 80s, the private sector (out of which the NGC chairman comes) took the lead with the six or nine per cent wage increase limit. Then the wage and COLA cuts followed.
The professor’s call for general wage freeze is the clarion call for the NGC “initiative” to be expanded nationally.
Cynical moves by Government
The NGC edict was issued on the 16th. The PM met with a section of the trade union movement, promising a “new” tripartite body on the 20th. On the 21st, the PM hailed the “sensible” unilateralism of the NGC. The Labour Minister then excused the unilateral action as “oversight” in a meeting with the same union body on the 23rd.
In light of these developments one union expressed “worry” that the NGC action will be the template for other similar moves by this government.
They can expect that this worry will turn to certainty.
More so as their faction of the trade union movement continues to rely on an MOU signed with a political party, mistaking it for an enforceable agreement with Government. Their misunderstanding is matched only by the cynical manoeuvrings of the PM and his Cabinet.
It was only a few weeks ago that the same PM and his “team” on the hustings were blaming the (mis)fortunes of the NGC on the then government. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, “Government” can no longer be blamed.
So, the tune has changed so that “energy price pressures” and “workers’ incomes” are the new culprits.
In this way, the austerity programme is to be justified as “sensible” “required rectification.”
All this rectitude is only to cloud the real causes of the frequent crises of the economic system and the predictable anti-social responses similarly dispensed regardless of who is in Government.
Those who speak of following the “Butlerite tradition” of trade unionism will do well to understand this.
Clyde Weatherhead