More increases will mean fewer jobs - Shaw
Published:Friday | October 22, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Audley Shaw, minister of finance and the public service, is insisting that the Government will have to consider job cuts if public-sector workers insist that their seven per cent wage increases are to be met.
"If we insist that everybody must get their money, then we will have to talk turkey about how we carve out the ability to get that money and we cannot in the process of carving out and getting that money, we cannot ignore the question of job cuts," said Shaw while addressing a luncheon meeting held by the Rotary Club of Kingston yesterday at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.
"You cannot have your cake and eat it, you cannot preserve jobs and continue to grant increases when your economy is not growing and when your partners, globally, their economy is not growing," he added.
Shaw said the protracted industrial action at this time was "ill-conceived and ill-advised".
Within the past week, a number of public-sector workers have been demanding the seven per cent wage increase, with Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) workers being the latest group of workers joining the line.
Kavan Gayle, president of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, yesterday said he was still awaiting responses to a letter the union sent to the BOJ's management.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, National Water Commission workers walked off the job demanding the payment of the increase. But Shaw is insisting that the Government cannot make the payment at this time.
"If we have a situation where our hands are tied and we have a continual insistence by various groups … we have to sit around the table and talk and we have to make some decisions. If you want the seven per cent, let's start making some decisions as to where we are going to implement the job cuts," he said.