Davies and Jackson
Glenroy Sinclair, Staff Reporter
The wage negotiation meeting between government and executive members of the Police Federation ended prematurely yesterday when federation members walked out on Junior Finance Minister Fitz Jackson.
Mr. Jackson was chairing the meeting at the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Heroes Circle, Kingston, when the walk-out occurred.
"We walked out because what they were offering was nothing satisfactory," an executive member of the federation told The Gleaner yesterday.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the member des-cribed the government's offer as an "insult to the rank -and-file members of the Jamaica Cons-tabulary Force (JCF)".
This was the federation's second meeting with Government this week. On Wednesday when they first met, Cordell Braham, the director of public relations, described the two-hour long meeting as fruitful. The Gleaner was advised that Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies was absent from yesterday's meeting.
On Wednesday, the feder-ation's executive met with Dr. Davies for two hours. That meeting followed the temporary 'detention' of the minister outside his Heroes Circle office by a boisterous group of about 100 policemen and women who were protesting to back their demand for an increased wage offer.
Last Sunday, rank-and-file officers of the JCF staged an all-night vigil at the Elletson Road Police Complex also to press their demand for increased salaries and as a show of support for the three policemen killed by gunmen last week.
The behaviour of the police outside the minister's office on Monday prompted Police commissioner Lucius Thomas to summon the executive members of the federation to an emergency meeting.
Following the meeting, the commissioner said the behaviour of the lawmen was being investigated and that he was not ruling out disciplinary action against the persons involved.
The Private Sector Organisa-tion of Jamaica (PSOJ) described the actions of the police as "a backward step" and urged the federation to continue the negotiations.
