UPDATED: Shaw withdraws, re-tables proposal for 4-year negotiating cycle

Finance Minister Audley Shaw re-tabled the Financial Administration and Audit Act (Compensation Negotiating Cycles) Order 2018 yesterday after withdrawing it, to make a correction, in the House of Representatives.

“What was in the Order was setting a four-year cycle going forward forever, and it was corrected to make it more precise to say it was just this cycle (2017 to 2021),” Fayval Williams, minister of state in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, told The Gleaner.

The Opposition has voiced concern regarding the imposition of a four year cycle by the Government, while wage negotiations with public sector workers are ongoing. 

Opposition Spokesperson for Labour and Welfare Horace Dalley said the manner in which the cycle was presented on Wednesday after the Budget Debate was an attempt by the Government to weaken the effectiveness of trade unions.

"To come to the House and to announce ... four years in the midst of negotiations, it is repugnant, it is high-handed," asserted Dalley. "Nothing is wrong to call your workers and say, 'We want to get our economic programme going, (so) we ask you to come with us on board for a longer negotiating cycle.' Nothing is wrong with that under special circumstances," argued Dalley.

At the beginning of yesterday's sitting, Minister of State with responsibility for the Public Service Rudyard Spencer defended the four-year cycle, saying that the extension would facilitate better planning. "The current two-year cycle, with one year already gone, does not allow for the Government to do all the things that are necessary to address the unions' requests and claims," said Spencer.

The Jamaica Teachers' Association, the Jamaica Police Federation and the Nurses' Association of Jamaica have all rejected the wage offer of a 16 percent increase over four years.

No wage increase above current offer for next four years

Meanwhile, public sector workers in the next four years will get no increase on basic salaries than what is currently offered if the target of a wage bill of no more than nine per cent of gross domestic product is to be achieved, as per the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Financial Secretary Darlene Morrison disclosed during yesterday's meeting of the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament that the compensation of employees, as per the wage bill at the end of March 2019, is required by law to be no more than nine per cent of GDP, and steps are being taken to achieve the objective.

This, as the PAAC, examining the Second Supplementary Estimates 2017-2018, disagreed on whether the current action to pay retroactive salaries to groups with which there is no wage agreement was tantamount to union busting. Morrison said the Financial Administration and Audit Act gave the finance minister power to carry out the current action without breaking any law.

"The authority to execute the payment of the new salary rates is covered by the Financial Administration and Audit Act, which allows the minister with responsibility for the public service to, by order, subject to negative resolution, establish compensation, negotiation cycles that allow for compensation settlements for persons employed to the Government, to be incorporated into the Estimates of Revenues and Expenditure for the financial year to which the settlements relates," she explained in her opening remarks, but which would be reiterated against accusations of union busting and breach of procedure.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this article did not indicate that the order was re-tabled.)