By Balford Henry, News EditorSTRIKING JPSCO workers yesterday defied a court injunction, staying off the job even as another restraining order was served on technical and supervisory staffers.
A walkout by the latter category including engineers and power station operators central to the maintenance of the service would threaten electricity supplies.
Talks between the Union of Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Personnel (UTASP) and the management of the JPSCo broke down yesterday on salary issues similar to those which triggered Tuesday's strike.
After the meeting, the JPSCO issued a statement warning the public that there could be possible disruptions in the electricity supply, should the UTASP-represented workers decide to take industrial action.
"The company will, however, continue to do everything possible to provide consistent service to customers during this period," the statement said.
The JPSCo was still able to keep some of its commercial services going yesterday, including the downtown Kingston office, despite the strike. But, there were pickets at some offices, including Ruthven Road, Kingston 10, where the gates were padlocked.
Late yesterday evening Minister of Labour Horace Dalley obtained a second injunction against strike action by the company's technical and supervisory staff. The clerical and hourly-paid workers have been on strike since Tuesday.
In the meantime, clerical and hourly-paid workers represented by the Bustamante Industrial Trades Union (BITU) and the National Workers Union (NWU) stayed off the job for a second day, demanding payment of increases based on a recent job evaluation exercise by Christmas and retroactive to January, 2001, as well as in protest against the company's plan to base salaries on 50 per cent of market range in upcoming wage negotiations.
The company has offered to pay the job evaluation increases by Christ-mas, but retroactive to January, 2002. The unions have rejected this offer. The company has also offered the workers production incentives to fill the void which would be created by the 50 per cent of market range target.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security has called a conciliatory meeting for ten this morning at the Ministry. Spokesmen for both the BITU and the NWU confirmed yesterday that they would attend this meeting, unlike their boycott of a meeting which the Ministry had scheduled for Monday morning.
Legal sources said yesterday, that if the workers defied the Court's injunction, only those named in the Minister's affidavit could be charged with contempt of court. The Gleaner understands that the Minister's affidavit named less than 10 delegates in each case. The law does not allow for all the workers nor for the union representative to be charged for contempt.
