Port Workers To Get Back Pay

Almost sixteen years of Collective Agreements, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars, have been negotiated for workers at the Port of Port of Spain. TTT News was at the official signing ceremony which took place on Friday. Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan applauded the two unions that agreed to accept the Chief Personnel Officer's offer for employees at the Port of Port of Spain. "I am really happy that both the Senior Management and also the EPA unions would have been able to come to that solution, agree upon the increase in these cases and the Port is in a position to actually settle these immediately and have payment going out to the various employees as early as today." Minister Sinanan noted that the negotiation period for the Senior Management Association (SMA) dated back to 2011. "It is unfortunate that we do have another union at the Port that seem not to be able to sit and negotiate a way forward because I would have liked, as Minister, to sign off as well with the SWWTU on a package that is really fair and affordable to the Port Authority." The negotiating periods for the Estate Police Association were 2014 to 2017 and 2017 to 2020. In the case of the SMA, the periods were 2011 to 2013, 2014 to 2016, and 2017 to 2019.