Public Service Union rejects government\'s pay offer

Dominica\'s Public Service Union (PSU) has rejected the government\'s offer of a two per cent pay increase for the period 2008/2009 and warned that it is not prepared to wait much longer to reach an agreement, according to a report on www.cananews.net.



There is a great chasm between what the government is offering and what the PSU wants. The union is seeking a 16 per cent raise for its members.



PSU general secretary Thomas Letang said his union is also interested in negotiating terms for a three-year period.



\"I can tell you straight that our response is that we will not accept the two per cent for 2008/2009 and our position is let us negotiate for the entire period,\" said Letang.



\"We are in contact with our mobilisation team, and our members are interested in negotiations starting very, very soon, and that we negotiate for a three year period,\" he added.



The government said, however, that it has to carry out a reclassification exercise before returning to the negotiating table, a stance that has not gone down well with the PSU executive.



\"So this thing about we are not going to negotiate for the second year and the third year until the outcome of the reclassification, the executive met today and we have completely and totally rejected that suggestion.



\"What we are saying is you have nothing to lose. Give us the salary increase when you would have carried out the exercise that is the reclassification exercise,\" the union leader said of the government\'s position.



He asserted that there was no reason why the salary increase could not be granted ahead of the reclassification exercise.



\"If for example…you give us a four per cent salary increase but when you do the reclassification it works out to six per cent or seven per cent then you have nothing to lose. All you do you is that you just adjust the person salary by a further two percent or three percent.