G.O.B. to Meet with Unions; the Unions Won’t Budge on Measures for Now!

But it may not be a done deal.  According to P.S.U.’s Dean Flowers, G.O.B. reached out to allow them a final chance to ventilate their reasons for their unwavering position.  That meeting couldn’t happen today and has been pushed back for Monday – and we’ll tell you all about that next week. But you’ll remember that G.O.B. has less than two weeks to go before the reading of the budget and so a decision needs to be made ASAP. What we can tell you from the unions’ position, they claim that as a body, they have not declared their position on the matter – whether they will accept or resist it. Now those come with big implications.  Here’s more from Flowers.

Dean Flowers

Dean Flowers, 1st Vice President, P.S.U.

“Thereafter, the joint unions will have to huddle with their amounts and their executives. And we will have to then – the choices are few: you accept it and you reject it and resist it and you see how long we can hold out and those are limited options. You can accept it or you resist it and resist it forcefully.  The joint union unanimously hasn’t made that decision and the public service union has received to a certain extent, the sentiments of many public officers what ought to come next. But we are not there yet and I keep telling them we are in consultation and until the government acts and violate your terms and conditions of service then that is the grounds that would then empower us to move in any direction you so propose that would entail possible industrial action or whatever. We understand the pressure on the budget but like I said there are only two ways out of this, or maybe three – we could may be compromise somewhere but the government is insisting that they want all of it. And I have said to my people under no circumstances can they receive all of it.”