Alfred Dawes | Almshouse and losses in wage negotiations

The problem with the approach of the Government towards the wage negotiations with public sector workers is that it is being driven supposedly by logic, and supported by scholarly calculations. The issues identified have solutions rooted in economic theories that are being applied in a Jamaican context. We can already see how this is going.

The problem of multiple allowances and pay scales across different ministries and state agencies needed to be addressed. That public sector employees need a liveable wage has been a talking point for every political party until they form the government. After the austerity era, the COVID-19 pandemic economic fallout, and in this high inflation period, government workers needed meaningful increases. Everyone can agree on that. It is the approach, however, that has landed the Ministry of Finance (MOF) in a position where it will have granted the largest salary increases in recent history, and yet has earned the wrath of every single grouping of government workers.

Government employees are used to incremental increases spread over the negotiating period. Having been called on time and time again to sacrifice for the greater good with wage freezes and smaller than usual increases, workers now want to see some benefits from their sacrifices. In an opinion piece published in The Gleaner of May 15, 2022, titled ‘Lightning strikes all over’, I closed by saying: “Militancy among public sector employees is at its highest level in years. The authorities need to recognise this and with cap in hand meet with the unions to address outstanding concerns before embarking on this expensive public sector reform. Otherwise, we are in serious trouble.”

PRESSED ON

The MOF and its team pressed on despite my desperate but obscure warnings. From their academic pulpit, they failed to address appropriately that Jamaicans culturally cannot “tek loses”. You need only to look at our visceral reaction to an unexpected sporting loss versus an epic win. The celebrations end far sooner than the griping and cursing following the loss. Sports fans in the MOF should have known that workers losing their non-taxable allowances and vehicle concessions would not be balanced psychologically by the net increase in their base salaries. The hurt of losing a benefit stings far more than the gain in a taxable salary. It just feels wrong.

For workers to see benefits cut and the promise of a better pension consoling them was a terrible misreading of their situation. The vantage point of the crafters of the offers are far different from those who rejected them. The more money you have, the more you think about the long term. The well-paid MOF team are able to forecast their retirement and plan accordingly because they have enough of a financial reserve to do so. They do not understand that the financially struggling working class simply do not have the luxury of advanced foresight. Their immediate day-to-day and month-to-month needs are not being met, and survival tomorrow consumes their thoughts today. They do not want to hear about a fat pension in 20 years when this months supermarket bill went up by 10 per cent. There is a gulf between what the MOF think the workers should be considering, and what the workers actually need. They simply need a better life now and stripping benefits away for a rosier future will never sit well with them.

OTHER ATTRIBUTE

The other attribute about Jamaicans that is going to cause further damage to the negotiating process is that we don’t like when people “keep up almshouse”. For the uninitiated, almshouse is our expression for treating others unfairly or unjust. No matter who the victim may be, if you keep up almshouse you will earn the wrath of even bystanders, much less co-workers. Even if the majority are better off because of the wage increases, they will not be as happy if they see even a minority losing in the process. The winners will more likely support the almshouse victims than celebrate their good fortune. We cannot take loses even if we are winners and almshouse causes another to lose.

Nowhere is this more apparent as in the Junior Doctors’ situation, where doctors working side by side in the trenches are either being compensated with retroactive payments if they are in approved government posts, or given nothing if they were contracted where there were no posts available. The compensated doctors are standing in solidarity with their almshoused contracted colleagues and have refused to sign off on the offer. They have not taken kindly to the trampling on the time-honoured moral contract of equal pay for equal work.

It has come as no surprise then that the negotiations have stretched out, the costs have ballooned and are set to balloon even further. There is simply no way that Jamaicans are going to surrender their cultural identity because of the arguments about fiscal responsibility and patriotism. The outcome will be further disruptions in government-administered services until the MOF caves in. The question then is simply how much more will it cost us, the taxpayers, and how will we pay for it now, or in the MOF’s favourite time frame, the long run. No matter what the outcome, it is the MOF that will be the biggest loser. How then will they, Jamaicans as well, tek the losses caused by the almshouse they themselves keep up?

- Dr Alfred Dawes is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and CEO of Windsor Wellness Centre. Follow him on Twitter @dr_aldawes. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and alfred.dawes@gmail.com