P.S.U., B.N.T.U. to Meet with PM

In a letter sent to the President of the P.S.U. by Financial Secretary, Joseph Waight, the union is told that if it continues to reject the proposal, the prime minister will use the power of his office. Waight says that the PM will proceed to advise the Governor General to amend the Public Service Regulations to give him the power to alter salaries, emoluments and increments. So we asked Senator Elena Smith if the discussions are all for naught since the government is hell-bent in having its way.

Elena Smith, National President, B.N.T.U.

“When we meet with the Prime Minister hopefully on Wednesday based on the response that we get then we can be able to share with our members the final responses from them s that they can say if they are okay with this or not okay with this. Then we provide them with our final response.”

Hipolito Novelo

“Do you believe that the negotiation or the communications between the government, the unions, the FinSec is for nothing because in his last letter I believe the FinSec said that if the P.S.U. does not agree we will go ahead and do it anyways? We will take it to the House.”

Elena Smith

Elena Smith

“Well again, we have noticed time and time again that it seems that whenever this government can’t have its way then the government goes and legislate. This is not going to be the first time. This is not going to be the second time. It has been done quite a bit and we see where there seems to be that there are trying to put a wedge between the unions to say okay these two have agreed but this one hasn’t agreed so that there is splintering of the three unions f you will. We want to make it very clear that the position of the P.S.U. in terms of all of those cost saving measures that that position is held also by the B.N.T.U. because we believe that the government must do more to save on its expenses. All of the things that they saying, we feel that some of the purchases that they have online that those things should be stop. We are saying that we don’t have monies so if we don’t have monies we can’t be spending like we have. You just left from a building that you own to be renting a building for one of your departments. That is not the behavior of a government that does not have any funds. So those issues, those areas that the P.S.U. raise we are in full agreement in those areas and we have been saying those things for quite some time now.”