AS THOUSANDS of visitors, which Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar place at 220,000 including returning nationals, flock into T&T to witness and experience the greatest show on earth, they’re being greeted by scowling faces of Airports Authority (AATT) security officers.

While the visitors are here to free up themselves the more than 400 officers, ranging in rank from constable to inspector, who have total control over the security at Piarco and Crown Point International Airports, are brimming with frustration because their pockets are hurting.

And at this point in time they can see no clear path ahead to easing the pressure.

Now they’re hoping that Transport Minister Devant Maharaj and AATT chairman Gerry Hadeed will use their good offices to ensure that they get justice, and the salaries and perks due to them soon.

But they may have a long wait, because judging by the AATT’s actions the authority seems to be bent on a classic “divide and rule” tactic with its staffers.

Their last three-year industrial agreement, 2006 to 2008, has long expired without the terms of a job evaluation exercise that was part and parcel of that pact being implemented.

Their union representative, the Estate Police Association (EPA), embarked on another negotiation with the AATT board for a 2009–2011 agreement, but the talks broke down with the implementation of the job evaluation done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers being the bone of contention.

And since October 20 last year the Ministry of Labour has had the authority to mediate and seek to bring about a settlement.

However, according to spokesmen for the aggrieved officers—who stress that they have the safety and security of the thousands of airport users daily in the palms of their hands—the mediation process is allegedly being stalled by an adviser to the AATT who has retired from the Labour Minister but still has enormous clout there.

The officers are vexed because the evaluation exercise was initiated to bring equity to the salaries of the civilian and security arms of AATT staffers.

What has actually happened is the civilian section staffers, who are represented by president Watson Duke and Public Services Association (PSA), have had the points awarded under the evaluation exercise converted into salary increases so their pay packets are now much fatter than the security officers who are in the same salary range.

And to add insult to injury, sources told TnT Mirror, when the EPA demanded that the results of the evaluation exercise be applied to the security officers the association’s lead negotiator, president Edison Munro, was told that the AATT could not afford that at this time.

Mirror learnt that while the PSA lapped up the offered five per cent increase that the AATT offered to the civilian staffers, the EPA is holding out for more, and is in fact insisting that the evaluation exercise kick in first, before a percentage increase is applied.

It was at that point that negotiations were referred to the Labour Ministry where they’ve been stuck for the last four months, with the tempers of security officers now set to blow, Mirror was reliably informed.

Into this mix is the fact that the AATT has managed to get some security officers to sign individual contracts accepting the five per cent increase.

They acknowledge that they are prohibited from taking industrial action, but they confess they are hopping mad.

“They went to individual members and said if the negotiations to the Labour Ministry for mediation the AATT would look to privatise the security and they could lose their jobs; they put fear into members and many signed individual contracts.
“They undermined EPA, but the problem with that with our airports being under the jurisdiction of the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAA) there must be supervisors in the employment roster.
“Now they have created situation where constables are getting more than corporals, and sergeants are getting more than inspectors. We have demoralised people working here
“We are calling on Minister and the board to intervene, even the Opposition Leader, Dr Keith Rowley. Because there appears to be a number of people still in authority at the AATT who were appointed by the last PNM regime.
“We think this is a sensitive issue: the President, Ministers, diplomats pass through Piarco and Crown Point every day. It can have serious implications.
“Our security is one of the most unique in world. We issue tickets, do screening, do aviation security (access control) and we can charge for any offence, excluding murder and treason; there is no other security firm in the country that performs all these functions,” a source noted.

The EPA’s Cooper told Mirror: “Up there in a mess.”

He said since being referred to the Labour Ministry last October all the association had received was an acknowledgment. Cooper said he suspected the plan was to dump the matter in the Industrial Court for arbitration.

“I believe despite the constraints the embattled officers will look at ways and means of exhibiting their frustration and vexation,” Cooper predicted. “There is poor industrial relations up there…very poor.”