Half the public sector accepts 4% wage increase
THE MINISTRY of Finance and the Public Service and 11 members of the Joint Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) inked a one-year wage agreement yesterday on behalf of some 50,000 public-sector workers.
Yesterday’s signing represents about 50 per cent of the entire complement of the public sector.
As part of the deal, the workers would receive a four per cent increase in wages and certain allowances. Additionally, retroactive payments will be effective from April 1 this year.
Helene Davis Whyte, president of the JCTU, told The Gleaner yesterday that the arrangement also allowed for workers earning up to $1.5 million a year to get a one-off payment of $40,000.
“We also have agreements in relation to the Government’s willingness to assist in the development of lands by making contributions to the infrastructural works and so on,” she said,
Further, Davis Whyte said that agreement would also see the Government making more funds available for training and development of public-sector workers through scholarships and grants.
Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke reached out to the other bargaining groups in the public sector inviting them to the table to settle negotiations in time for the Government to make payments by the end of December.
PUBLIC-SECTOR COMPENSATION REVIEW
“If we can reach agreements with the remaining groups, this is going to be very important for us to achieve our goal to begin the implementation of the compensation review in April (2022).”
He cautioned that if payments were carried over for this year into the next fiscal year, it would compromise the Government’s ability to begin the implementation of the compensation review exercise.
Emphasising the need for the ministry to embark on the compensation review beginning early April 2022, Clarke said that the Government was constrained in providing quality services to Jamaicans if the public sector was unable to retain talent, owing to its compensation system.
“We will do what is necessary to begin the implementation in April but the caveat is that we cannot afford to carry the payment for this year into next year because it will obviously compromise what we can do next year.”
Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) President General Senator Kavan Gayle described the agreement as a holding position, noting that the more important aspect of the negotiations related to the highly anticipated public-sector compensation review that was commissioned by the Government.
He noted that the process looked at setting appropriate pay scales and pay rates and evaluating the roles within the public sector “so that it can inform a new type of compensation structure that is relevant for the value and worth of the jobs within the public sector”.
Gayle said this one-year settlement was a temporary measure aimed at alleviating the economic burden on public-sector workers.
The unions that signed the wage agreement with the Ministry of Finance at its National Heroes Circle offices yesterday are the BITU, Jamaica Civil Service Association, the National Workers Union, the University and Allied Workers Union, Trade Union Congress, Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers, Jamaica Union of Public Officers and Public Employees, United Union of Jamaica, Jamaica Workers Union, Union of Technical, Administrative, Supervisory Personnel and the Union of Schools and Allied Workers.