Public Officers to Face Delay in Salary Increase

Patrick Faber

At the last press conference held in the aftermath of Hurricane Earl, Prime Minister Dean Barrow spoke briefly about having a discussion with the unions in terms of having a delay in the increase of salary for public officers and teachers considering the relief efforts and the external debt payments.  On Monday, PM Barrow met with representatives from the various unions to discuss the delay of the salary adjustment. Lead minister in the collective bargaining agreement, Patrick Faber told the media today that he also met with members of the joint negotiating team.

Patrick Faber, Minister of Education

“Well as far as I know, the delay that is being sought by the Prime Minister to the unions is not because of the economic situation. In fact, you will remember that the unions and the Financial Secretary shook hands and signed off on what the payment will be. So that was intended to be paid. Enters Earl and of course you know the difficulty we saw there. So the Prime Minister as a result of the devastation of Hurricane Earl and the Ministry of Finance and the wider government having to find monies in the immediate aftermath of Earl in dealing with these situations has made that plea to the group of unions that were in the collective bargaining agreement negotiations. I am pretty sure that they met with the Prime Minister on Monday and I think it is the B.N.T.U. that primarily indicated that they need to take the issue of the delay to their membership so that they can then get back with the other unions to give the Prime Minister an answer about their position as to whether or not they can accept the proposal put forward by the Prime Minister. I will tell you this as well that last week Friday, as lead minister in the collective bargaining negotiations—outside of that salary issue that was taken directly to the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister—that we had a very cordial meeting with all those who were involved in the collective bargaining agreement and the decision coming out of that meeting was to bring these rounds of negotiations to a close. We believe that the only issue that is outstanding of course, to an extent—not even to its full extent—because we already decided on what this last phase of the salary increase will be….it is just a matter of making the payment and if the delay is to come then that will be another issue. But it is already decided. So in so far as that is already decided, we have no other outstanding issue and so all who were there agreed that we will move to bring to a close this round of collective bargaining negotiations.”

Faber says that he will be seeking permission from cabinet to start a new engagement in terms of collective bargaining agreements with the unions.