Threats won’t fix public service productivity

Unions: Threats won’t fix public service productivity

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Trade union lead­ers have pushed back against the Gov­ern­ment’s threat to dis­miss un­pro­duc­tive pub­lic ser­vants, ar­gu­ing that work­ers can­not be held sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for poor pro­duc­tiv­i­ty when many lack the tools, equip­ment and sup­port need­ed to per­form their du­ties.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of pro­mot­ing a cul­ture of in­tim­i­da­tion, while Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) pres­i­dent gen­er­al Christo­pher Streete said em­ploy­ees could not be ex­pect­ed to work ef­fi­cient­ly with­out the nec­es­sary tools and equip­ment.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Bevon Ashe al­so cau­tioned em­ploy­ers against blam­ing work­ers for poor per­for­mance when they were not pro­vid­ed with the re­sources need­ed to car­ry out their du­ties.

The union lead­ers were re­spond­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ing dur­ing Mon­day’s 2027 Bud­get de­bate that pub­lic ser­vants un­will­ing to give an hon­est day’s work for an hon­est day’s pay would be ter­mi­nat­ed and re­placed by peo­ple pre­pared to work.

In a strong­ly word­ed re­sponse, Ogeer said threat­en­ing em­ploy­ees with dis­missal was not the so­lu­tion to de­clin­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is not a plan­ta­tion, and pub­lic ser­vants are not dis­pos­able com­modi­ties to be threat­ened from the po­lit­i­cal plat­form when­ev­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty be­comes a con­ve­nient talk­ing point,” Ogeer said.

“A Prime Min­is­ter ought to in­spire pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, not gov­ern through fear. Lead­er­ship is not mea­sured by the loud­ness of one’s threats but by the wis­dom of one’s de­ci­sions.”

Ogeer said the CWU did not con­done ab­sen­teeism, in­dis­ci­pline, in­ef­fi­cien­cy or de­lib­er­ate ne­glect of du­ty, but in­sist­ed that es­tab­lished dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures and prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice must be fol­lowed.

She warned that threat­en­ing em­ploy­ees with dis­missal could cre­ate re­sent­ment, anx­i­ety and low morale rather than im­prove work­place ef­fi­cien­cy.

Streete, how­ev­er, adopt­ed a more mea­sured po­si­tion, ac­knowl­edg­ing that work­ers who failed to per­form their du­ties should be dealt with ap­pro­pri­ate­ly.

He said the Prime Min­is­ter was over­look­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of em­ploy­ers to en­sure em­ploy­ees had the equip­ment and ma­te­ri­als nec­es­sary to work ef­fi­cient­ly.

“So the Prime Min­is­ter is mak­ing that state­ment in iso­la­tion and not con­sid­er­ing what are the means that must be put in place for peo­ple to be more pro­duc­tive,” he said.

Streete ac­knowl­edged that Trinidad and To­ba­go faced pro­duc­tiv­i­ty chal­lenges across both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

He called for Gov­ern­ment, em­ploy­ers and trade unions to meet and de­vel­op prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions to im­prove the coun­try’s over­all pro­duc­tive ca­pac­i­ty.

Mean­while, Ashe said the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment, al­though con­tro­ver­sial, did not di­rect­ly af­fect TTUTA’s mem­ber­ship.

He ex­plained that teach­ers were no longer part of the civ­il ser­vice, fol­low­ing the re­struc­tur­ing and delink­ing of the Teach­ing Ser­vice in 2005.

Nev­er­the­less, Ashe en­cour­aged em­ploy­ees across the coun­try to per­form their du­ties with pride and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.