Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're tuned into the all new freedom 106.5. 106.5.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Let's take our attention and turn it over to the president of the Nursing Association, Eddie Stewart. Good morning to you, Eddie, and thank you so much for joining us this morning.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Pleasant morning to you and your listeners. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: All right, thank you. Sorry for the delayed start, but let's get right into it. You know, we're talking about the nurses and the protest action that is carded for this Friday.
Well, it was, I mean, sorry, sorry, it went last Friday. Listen, so much information.
And you have two more. You have another one coming up.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: All right, let's talk a little bit about it. You know why the protest action taking place at this time?
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Well, the National Nursing association really feel that we have been slighted a bit.
And I'll explain.
The goodly Minister of Finance would have indicated to the association and indicated to the public actually last year when the Public Service association negotiated for 10% salary increase for workers within the public sector. Now persons must remember the RHA workers will have come out of the public service with the formation of the RHA's under the 1994 RHA act and subsequently they created the RHA's in 2006 around there.
So RHA workers really and truly would have expected over the years that they would have received the same salary increases that public servants would have gotten until they would have gotten their own majority trade union of which nurses did.
And the Minister of Finance indicated, look, those RHA workers must negotiate. And he actually singled out the nurses association and said they must go through the negotiation process. They won't be entitled to the same salary increases as the public servants anymore. So we started the negotiation process with the RHA's and lo and behold, the RHAs are telling us a different view.
They are telling us, no, no, no, we're not going to really negotiate with you all. You all only receive our new status in 2025. So you can only negotiate from 2025 go forward.
So what is to happen from 2013 which RHA workers are currently on salaries? So 2025, what has happened to that period? Well, we will go ahead and apply the public servant salary increase whenever the Minister of Health and Minister of Finance so dictates.
So we are listening to the CEOs of the RHA and we saying, okay, we're not even going to fight up and make that an argument. We're going to say, okay, Minister of Finance, since that is the position and it was Confirmed because the ERHA actually wrote back to the Ministry of Health to confirm this is their position. And the Ministry of Health confirmed that this is their position. That really no negotiations will take place. They will just apply what the public servants would have received as they have been doing over the years until that backlog is cleared up and then they would move forward with any RMUs going forward.
So seeing that that is the position and the Minister of Finance was a little tricky in his press release in December trying to give the impression that negotiations is needed when really and truly no negotiations is really needed. It's just the allocation of the same salary increase that public servants got. And we have been writing ad nauseam to the Minister of Finance, to the Minister of Health, trying to get a timeline and unfortunately no timeline has been forthcoming. Yeah, and that is our real main concern.
The real main concern is that we want the Minister of Finance simply to indicate.
Indicate when rhe workers. We're not saying to pay us today, we're not saying to pay us tomorrow, or we not see to pay us in one month time. We just want him to identify tarantry because when we would receive that salary increase. Yeah.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: The thing about it is this what I want to know.
What sort of feedback are you all getting when you all try to engage the Chief personal officer?
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Well, we don't engage any chief personal officer. We are all workers within state enterprises normally links with the CEOs of the RHA.
So the CPO is for public servants.
So CPO.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: All right, I think. Okay.
What transpired where that was concerned with the engagement of the CEO? Is it that they are not paying attention to. To what is taking place waged with the wage negotiations and the ask of the.
Of the Nursing Association, Is it that you're saying. Because they're trying to follow through on a lot of different things coming to me Information at the same time that this, this, this period in which you are protesting. By the way, how did you all fare with the protest though? I mean, given the fact that we're in a state of emergency, you all got permission to.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: It went quite well. The police were present. They gave no issues. We would have written to the police, we'd have written to the ATT General, would have written to the Prime Minister.
So all persons were fully aware.
There's nothing within the regulations. Persons had that misconception. And that is why it's so important to action your democratic principles. Otherwise it could be taken away or it could be perceived to have been taken away. So TJ is pleased and we were confident because we would have demonstrated under SOE under the former government during the COVID regulation. So we were fully aware that you can protest during a state of emergency because we did it under the state of emergency when the last government was in office in 2020, 2021. So no one could have told us and we would have gone through the regulations.
And our lawyers confirm. Yes. Nothing within the regulations debar the association from engaging in peaceful protest action.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: All right, noted. So with that being said, now for the benefit of those just joining us and really solidifying what the nurses are asking for now, what period of negotiations are you all protesting for?
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Well, let me. And it's not just nursing, because the other categories of workers within the regional health authorities, the social workers, the dietitians, the phlebotomist, the lab techs, the pharmacists, all of us are currently working on 2013 salaries. In fact, we are probably one of the few groups still remaining on 2013 salaries.
Everyone else has already been brought up to 2019, 2019 salaries.
So any more majority of the unions, when you hear them speaking, are speaking from a point where they negotiated from 2020 or 2023 go forward. Whereas health care workers, essential service, they like to pull that car that we essential and we shouldn't protest and all of these things. But when it comes down to bread and butter, it's. They don't recognize us as being essential. They don't take into account that health care workers need to be brought up to a living wage and certainly not be kept on 13 year old salaries. Yeah, you know, our main goal is was and continue to be for the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health to indicate when we will move from that 2013, when we will be allocated that 10% salary increase given to public servants. We just want to know when and then we can make an informed decision. Our membership can make an informed decision. RHA workers can make an informed decision. I have some hope that at some point in time in the not too distant future, we will receive a salary increase because every single thing else is going up.
Every single thing blocks cement, steel, NIS, even government salaries have gone up. Yes, 26 to 47%.
Every single government official, including the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health has gone up during that time, while healthcare workers and nursing and medicine personnel in particular have remained at 0% salary increase. And I don't believe that is unfair. And if anyone could tell me what we are asking for is unfair or unreasonable or irrational, well, ideas I would love to hear that argument, I wanted
[00:09:16] Speaker B: to ask you, but I think it may be a bit overreaching, you know, if you can give a bracket to which these workers monthly wage looks like, you know, because when you look at the fact that since 2013, now in 2013, was that defined? Was that a period where you all had received compensation up to 2013 and then you all needed to negotiate between 13 and 16.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Well, 14 and 16. That, that is 14.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: All right, so you all, you all were current up until 1513. So from 14.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Actually, no, actually that negotiation concluded in 2015.
So 2011 to 2013 was being negotiated in 2015. So that was already backdated.
That was a backdated period. Negotiations was being treated with again via the public service PSA and the cpo. It was negotiated, public service got increased and then health care workers had to engage in seven months of protest action.
So this is not new. We had to engage in seven months of protest action against the dead Minister of Health, Dr. Fuad Khan, lobbying for an increase during that period.
So that and all. And then we did not get the back pay of that increase till two years after. And that came under the subsequent government. The subsequent government came in and had to pay the back pay to that. So the government that day in 2015 hesitated to pay health care workers for seven months until we engaged in a series of demonstration and then one, when it was applied, the back pay came two years after because they split up the back pay in two. And then the subsequent government paid it out in two tranches.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: One person.
Go ahead, go ahead.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah, so this is ongoing difficult process that healthcare workers continue to go. And we really trying to understand what is the rationale and ask about what are some of the salaries a nurse salary, who would have gone through four years of nursing school, would have come out with their bachelor's in nursing education and working on awards, gets around 7,500. Yeah, that's the basic salary.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Wow. Wow.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: And let me also say we live in an environment where especially nursing and fee personnel, which remain in such high demand internationally, every single nurse in Trinidad and Tobago can go abroad to work for three times that salary.
Currently three, four times that salary. And ironically, you know, we had a meeting with the Minister of Housing on Thursday, actually last week, and we was pointing out to the honorable David Lee that, you know, in an environment where, where nursing and midwifery personnel are not allotted the same luxuries as some of the other persons in protective services, where they can benefit from the 10% housing stock, nursing and Military person are not entitled to that.
And in our environment also where we remain on 2013 salaries, it would have been good for the Minister of Housing to include nursing personnel in some form of allotment because as you would expect, 7,500 is not going to afford you any house in the private sector. So the only way you're going to be afforded a house is in state sector.
So we were trying to demonstrate how we are not. If you were to compare nursing, I mean free person to any of the other services.
We don't enjoy the salaries that they enjoy. We don't enjoy the housing benefits, we don't enjoy health insurance that these other protective services enjoy. We don't enjoy the vacation leaves that they enjoy. We don't. I mean, so many things you can go on and on. And it's almost like healthcare workers have been penalized on a continuous basis for something that we have done that we have not been. Either way, all right.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Hello. Good morning.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:13:58] Speaker D: Hey, lady. I am.
I know you all dealing with the TST thing with the money spending.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Morales, we interview with the president of the Nursing Association.
Is your comment along those lines, what
[00:14:18] Speaker D: I'd like to see happen, if it's possible for us to have like a database of all our qualified nurses in the country. So like we will know one time how many nurses possibly can get jobs in our institution or not. Because, you know, this institution, this government came into office and said they're going to fill out our vacancies, but how are you going to fill the vacancies when if you had 10 vacancies and you had 20 people, 10 people definitely are getting job. So I would like to see you know, more. I don't know if you all have it already. Listen, if there's asset data that exists so we'll know how many people actually we need, how many people qualified and how many wouldn't get job at all? Because we do ask them, is it
[00:14:56] Speaker B: that we have a nursing shortage in this country?
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Yes, we have a grave nursing shortage. And worse yet, we have an even greater nursing shortage when it comes to specialist nurses. So we have shortage in general trained nurses and specialist nurses. We actually don't have any nursing schools training specialist nurses currently. And with the whole issue with Cuba where we no longer are allowed to bring in nurses or doctors from Cuba, it's just making the situation even worse because we cannot acquire nurses from any other place because Trinidad and Tobago is one of the lowest paid for nursing and midwifery personnel in the world.
In any Developed country or developed place country right now. So any country lower than us, those nurses will go to developed countries, the us, the Canadas, the Saudi Arabia's, the England. So there's really no else we can
[00:15:52] Speaker B: acquire nurses from understand nurses was promised permanent jobs in Tobago and only to recognize that they are now being given three three year contracts or something to that effect. What is the position with the Tobago nurses? What is happening with the engagement between the THA and the Nursing Association?
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Well we have, we, well we were shocked and alarmed when just prior to the election we were elated initially prior to the Tobago elections where nursing personnel were calling in their hundreds and offered permanent employment.
It is something that the association and the TRHA and the THA has been working, working on for quite some time and we indeed elated that the Secretary for Health in Tobago ensured that it was completed.
Lo and behold those envelopes were empty and they were advised in the meeting that you know, they couldn't really put all the documents in any envelopes but persons would get it soon after.
But that soon after came and what nurses? A number of nurses, I wouldn't say all but a significant portion of nurses would eventually give another contract.
Some did indeed receive permanent employment but a number of them contacted us and let us know, look, I got back another contract. What is going on here?
So we have been reaching out to the RHA's, the TRHA to find out what is going on and we expect to hold a meeting shortly with the CEO. I would have seen that the Secretary of Health would have given a response to the media indicating that look, this is our process, it could not have happened all at the same time and they had to tie over some persons who contracts came to an end, they had to tie them over with another contract. It's not. But as soon as their permanency letters are ready, I don't know why it's taken so long, they would be given the permanent but one confirmation as to that because the same sort of thing is happening in Trinidad. For instance, Northwest Regional Authority is going through a process to make nursing and personal permanent and then after that they move on to the other categories of staff.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: One text saying Mr. Stewart needs to say in point form the real issues because he's. They're saying they're a bit confused as to what your child, what the challenges are and I think it basically comes down in layman term to the, to the wage negotiations. The way that the CEO is treating with the, with the situation given the fact that you all are functioning and operating in 2013. All right. How come they weren't between 2015? Okay, well done. That's useless. Fire representative.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: The usual comments that we always see. How come you're not making noise? Why I didn't make noise under the pnm. The usual refrain. It's, it's, it's.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: All right, let's take this call quickly. Edie, before we go. Hello, Good morning.
[00:19:00] Speaker C: Hi. Morning, lady.
So, Mr. St. Right, I heard you said that receive around 7,005. At what rank nurse received that, that salary, Is it a top level nurse rank or a lower? When you came out, when you come out from this in school with your bachelor's, you start at 7,005. They need to clear that, please.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: All right.
[00:19:19] Speaker C: And the second thing, if you are negotiated for the past 10 years for 1% to date I reached 10% negotiation. Rather look for 10% in one year. Thank you much.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Well, the entry level salary for this is 7507. That's the entry level basic salary and that's the salary. The basic salary, as persons would know, is what you peg your pension on.
There are some other allowances, but as we know, allowances are taken away once you're on any form of leave. When it comes to negotiations, I'm not really sure I got the question appropriately, but when it comes to negotiations, you negotiate according to periods.
And the period that is in question is actually two periods. It's 14 to 16 and 17 to 19. So it's actually over a six year period that this 10% was allocated to public servants. And we think we expect the same amount to be given to healthcare workers who came out from the public service.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: One TEXA is asking me to ask you very quickly as we get set to wrap, the news is coming up. Do we have a nursing hospital in Trinidad?
[00:20:41] Speaker A: A nursing hospital?
[00:20:42] Speaker B: A nursing school, sorry, not a nursing hospital. A nursing school in Trinidad and Tobago.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: We have three nursing schools currently in Trinidad and Tobago. Ue, USC and Kostad.
And they churn out nurses on an ongoing basis.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: When you graduate from Kostad and these places with your nursing degree and your bachelor's and what have you, what is the protocol for nurses? Now these persons who graduate, are they coming out as trainees into the field or are they coming out as RNs?
[00:21:13] Speaker A: RNs, RNs and RMNs. Registered Nurse and registered mental nurse. And then you.
Well, part of the whole process, you have to write a regional nursing council exam which will allow you to be registered on the role of nurses in Tobago and also allow you to work basically anywhere else in the world. You must have that final certification.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Eddie, thank you very much for coming in.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: You're tuned into the all new freedom 106.5. 106.5.
