NWC workers issue 72-hour strike notice

The more than 2,000 workers at state-owned National Water Commission (NWC) have issued a notice to strike in 72 hours if the Government does not address their concerns about new salary bands.

General Secretary of the Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers (JALGO), Helene Davis-White, said the notice dated July 7, was delivered close to 7 o'clock on Saturday evening.

"The issues relate to discontent over the pay bands developed for the NWC, particularly at the lower ends and the conversion principles but we do not want to go into details in the media at this time," she told The Gleaner. Government has been pursuing a contentious restructuring of compensation for public sector workers. 

She added: "We are hoping to get a meeting at the Ministry of Labour on Monday."

JALGO is one of five unions representing employees at the utility agency. The others are the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union; the National Workers' Union; the Union of Public and Private Employee and the NWC Executive Staff Association. 

All five are signatories to the strike notice issued in a letter addressed to NWC president Mark Barnett. Telephone calls to him after the news was confirmed went unanswered.

 In the letter, the unions acknowledged an NWC email they received with responses from the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service to concerns they raised at a meeting on July 3. 

"This response, the workers deem to be unacceptable and have therefore mandated us to advise that if the matter is not satisfactorily resolved within the next seventy-two hours, then they will have no option but to resort to taking industrial action," the unions said. 

The details of the ministry's response were not disclosed. 

The letter was copied to the finance and labour ministries. 

The threat of strike action comes as customers grapple with restrictions implemented months ago to deal with the ongoing drought. 

Last year May, the workers went on strike for two days over a reclassification exercise, crippling business and some public services across the country. Some 500,000 customers were affected. 

The Planning Institute of Jamaica reported a month later that the protest cost the NWC $240 million in revenue. 

A back-to-work proposal then included a compensation review that was to be implemented within six months. 

Amid last year's protests, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that he had sought a legal opinion from Attorney General Dr Derrick McKoy on whether NWC and its workers are classified as essential workers.

Part III Subsection (9) (5) of the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act forbids essential service workers from taking industrial action.

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