APSSM Still Says No to Proposed Salary Cut

Sharon Fraser

After checking with its members, the executive of the A.P.S.S.M. found that the collective position taken prior to Monday’s meeting with government remains the same.  The prevailing sentiment among senior managers is still “no” to the proposed salary cut.  But they have countered with a list of adjustments for government to realize the savings it is looking for.

Sharon Fraser, President, APSSM

“As you all might know, APSSM is the smallest of the three public sector workers union, so it was a little easier for me to get to my members and ultimately what came out of that discussion was the fact that members still were not amenable to a salary cut.  So that is what, without conditions of course, our no was a conditional no.  It wasn’t an absolute no, so there are other things.  But I have to say that at the last meeting that we had, they had made certain offers like shortening the work week, they also offered the issue of going to the financial institutions to ask for a forbearance.  For the general public, it’s like putting on hold your payments for a particular period of time to assist with the shortfall that would have happened if it is that salaries were cut back by this ten percent. There were people who felt that government is asking us to cut but yet they were seeing new hiring, they were seeing rentals, unnecessary rentals of buildings, they were seeing purchasing of vehicles and they were seeing ads going out advertising for the increase of staff in certain ministries and departments while at the same time saying that the wage bill is too large.”