'Do not look at that zero,' Morris-Dixon tells teachers ahead of meeting set for Thursday

Education Minister Dr Dana Morris-Dixon has announced that a meeting is scheduled for Thursday morning at the Office of the Prime Minister to clarify and settle salary negotiations for several of Jamaica’s unions, including the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA).

“Do not look at that zero,” Morris-Dixon said, as she gave the update today during her keynote address at the JTA’s third and final day of its 61st Annual Conference at the Princess Grand Hotel in Green Island, Hanover.

"It is a negotiation and, as the prime minister said, we are coming to you to give you the best offer... so you do not need to look at that zero," she said. Morris-Dixon stated that as the unions head back to the negotiating table, she expects that the discussions will occur in "good faith".

“Tomorrow morning at 9:30, there is a meeting of the national partnership with the unions there to discuss wages. It will be at the Prime Minister’s office, and we will have the unions there, we will have civil society there, and the Government and Opposition has been invited to it, so this is serious. We are serious about getting to you the best offer possible,” said Morris-Dixon.

“The president [JTA President Mark Malabver] has spoken to me about anomalies from the last negotiation, and that those anomalies also have to be addressed. It is not just the go-forward position, but it is also addressing some anomalies that you have found, and it is not just you, it is also you and other public sector workers that have seen that,” Morris-Dixon continued.

The minister’s announcement is the most recent update in the wage negotiation saga with the JTA, after the organisation’s representatives walked out of a meeting with Finance Minister Fayval Williams on August 15.

That walkout was a show of the JTA’s rejection of a four-year wage offer of zero per cent in the first year and 2.5 per cent in each of the remaining three years.

During his inaugural address at the start of the JTA conference on Monday, Malabver indicated that teachers could take industrial action if the wage offer is not amended.

- Christopher Thomas

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