'Pay us'...UTech academic employees continue to demand retro money
Published:Tuesday | November 5, 2019 | 1:33 PM
The University of Technology, Jamaica Academic Staff Union (UTASU) says the business of the institution will languish further as its members have voted against an offer to pay them 45 percent of the retroactive amounts owed for 2018/2019.
UTASU says the matter was put before an emergency meeting yesterday where members argued that the offer was incomplete and rejected it.
The more than 500 employees have been on strike since October 25.
“The union described the offer as…a retrograde step and an erosion of the agreement reached with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, the Ministry of Education Youth and Information and the university’s management in May 2019 to pay retroactive amounts owed to academic staff in three tranches ending in May 2020,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
The employees are also owned sums for the 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 contract periods.
The spokesperson explained that the offer contained no commitment for payment of the remaining 55 percent of the 2018/19 amounts, nor did it outlined a schedule of payments for the retroactive amounts for 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18.
The Ministry of Education proposed at a meeting last Thursday to pay staff $400 million of the funds owed to them for 2018/19, pledging $250 million from its existing budget.
The remaining $150 million would be paid by UTech.
This falls short of the $886 million in retroactive money for 2018/2019.
Taken together, the back pay covering the contract periods total just under $4 billion.
The UTech academic employees say they are already being denied at least five years of retroactive payments due from 2010 to 2015 and believe that the request for further sacrifice is unreasonable and unjust.
They are calling for the government and the university to honour the May 2019 agreement.
Meanwhile, a meeting is scheduled for this afternoon at the Ministry of Labour to try to reach an agreement.
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