UTech academic staff reject interim payment offer

Academic employees at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) have rejected the government’s offer to settle retroactive payments.

They along with their union, the University of Technology, Jamaica Academic Staff Union, will be holding a series of meetings over the weekend to decide the way forward.

Following those talks, it is expected that representatives of the union and government officials will meet on the matter.

The union and its members met today at the Papine, St Andrew-based institution to discuss the payment offer.

The Ministry of Education yesterday proposed an interim payout of $400 million to cover the outstanding sums.

This falls well short of the outstanding $886 million reportedly owed to the UTech staff.

The 500 staff members have been on strike since last Friday after the university failed to make the payment.

Workers received the first tranche of back pay in July and expected payouts to be made in two other phases – October 2019 and April-May 2020.

The Ministry of Finance has indicated that it is unable to provide additional funding to honour the agreement.

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