'Break that hand!' - Teachers to fight for wages

Mark Titus, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

Members of the Jamaica Teachers' Association's (JTA) St James chapter have slammed the Government's recent offer, describing it as "an abuse of human labour", and called for immediate payment of outstanding salaries.

The educators made the call Friday during the annual parish meeting at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church auditorium in Montego Bay.

"The outstanding retroactive is settled in terms of the Government's intention to pay over the next three years," Paul Adams, past president and president-elect of the JTA, told The Gleaner.

"We are hoping that the Government will recalculate their intention and have the money that is owed to us paid over immediately."

disappointed groups

Unions and groups representing the island's nurses, teachers, rank-and-file police personnel and junior doctors, on Thursday afternoon expressed disappointment following talks with the Ministry of Finance.

State minister in the Finance Ministry, Senator Arthur Williams, is insisting that the Government is unable to facilitate the payment schedule put forward by the unions, because of efforts to protect the gains made in the economy and to preserve its agreement with the International Monetary Fund. He also stated his intention to formally write to the trade unions for them to communicate in writing their response to the Government's offer.

In an animated presentation to a jam-packed auditorium, Adams lamented successive governments' unwillingness to honour their commitments.

"Bruce Golding is a very nice man, very articulate, just like Mr Patterson, Mr Manley and Bustamante, all prime ministers, all have one thing in common," he said. "They have a clenched-fist syndrome, and you will need to break the proverbial arm in three places to prise the fingers to get what you are to get."

"The Government is rich, they can more than afford to pay us. Anyone who can spend $800 million on a piece of road, they must be rich," he said in reference to the controversial construction of the Christiana bypass road in Manchester, which cost taxpayers nearly $800 million under the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme.