CWU and Social Security Board disagree to agree

Employees of the Social Security Board, who are members of the Christian Workers Union, are tonight up in arms after failure to secure a new collective bargaining agreement with its management.  On Wednesday the CWU issued a release stating that proposals had been presented for S.S.B. employees to receive benefits along with salary increases, which date back to May 2008.  Of an entire workforce of three hundred employed at S.S.B., two hundred are unionized.  Despite claims that the staff is well paid the release says otherwise.  The twenty-nine employees who form S.S.B.’s upper management collectively account for forty-five percent of all salaries while union members receive forty-seven point seven percent.  Salaries expenditure for 2010 was increased to a total of two hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars and the CWU is now questioning who the recipients of the raise were.

Last week, the S.S.B. submitted a letter to the union, which, among other incentives, proposes a retroactive salary adjustment to January first.  Additionally, staff salaries will be adjusted to their relevant pay scales effective January first, 2012.  Regardless of the offer, the release goes on to say that employees are displeased with the action of S.S.B.’s management, which seeks to recover some of the cost of salary adjustment from the surplus reserves of the Staff Pension Fund.  Incidentally, employees are currently contributing two point eight percent of their annual salaries to that fund.  The release ends by calling upon the management to seriously reconsider its position in order to agreeably settle the matter.