CAL PILOTS DELIVER LETTER TO IMBERT

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In search of answers. This is how members of the Trinidad and Tobago Airline Pilots Association describe their latest actions, as they hand-delivered a letter addressed to the Minister of Finance. The pilots say outstanding salary negotiations remain a sore point for their membership and they would like to see a positive turnaround of the situation.

Transcript

00:00What is the endgame here? If the 4% is not going to be acceptable, is it that

00:06you're telling the pilots that you want them to take 0% or a pay cut going

00:12forward? We cannot go back to our membership and tell them we have nothing

00:16to offer you. The Trinidad and Tobago Airline Pilots Association says the

00:20terms and conditions CAL Pilots work under are outdated. Captain Keith Dowdy

00:26says the pilots entered the negotiating period with optimism and were taken by

00:31surprise over the non-responsiveness to their offer. He says it was that in

00:36action which prompted the peaceful protest by pilots on October 3rd. Since

00:41that picket, we have also received nothing through any of our channels. So

00:46what we are doing here today is to leave no stone unturned by bringing the letter,

00:52requesting an audience with the minister. Two or three meetings went by

00:57and then the Caribbean Alliance team said we don't know what is going on, we

01:01are not getting a response. The pilots are now taking their plight directly to

01:06the Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert, to treat and deal with the matter. We

01:10dropped a letter, a second letter, to the Honourable Minister of Finance, Colm

01:15Imbert, asking for his intervention and to get some sort of update as to what is

01:21happening. Pilots say the first letter was sent in April 2024. The association

01:27maintains that pilots are uninterested in holding the airline or passengers to

01:31ransom and will keep their action within their constitutional rights. Another

01:36issue that is of serious concern is the expansion plans for the airline. They say

01:42the path outlined will not see the airline filling the desired vacancies.

01:46The pilots have been operating under an expired collective agreement for the

01:51past nine years and in July 2024 put forth a wage increase proposal for a 4%

01:58salary increase. Since this matched the Chief Personal Officer's offer to other

02:03unions, Talpa is of the opinion that a settlement is more than overdue.

02:09Akshaya Galston, TV6 News.

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