Tread carefully - Portia
Published:Monday | June 13, 2011 | 12:00 AM
- Warns Government to have dialogue in public-sector wage impasse
Nagra Plunkett, Assignment Coordinator
WESTERN BUREAU:
Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller wants the Government to "tread carefully" in its deliberations with civil servants concerning the contentious payment of outstanding salaries.
A fiery Simpson Miller on Saturday evening urged the Bruce Golding-led administration not to trigger the ire of the more than 100,000 public-sector workers, and facilitate meaningful dialogue to forge an amicable solution.
"We are telling you to get it right, Mr Prime Minister," she told supporters during a West Central St James constituency meeting at the Granville Primary School in Montego Bay, St James. "Nothing can beat dialogue and you are provoking the workers of this country."
offer rejected
Unions representing the civil servants rejected the Government's offer to implement a seven per cent increase in September, and pay retroactive monies for April to August 2011 between September and March 2012.
The Government has persistently stated that its inability to pay the monies owed, which covers the April 2009 to March 2011 wage freeze, is to safeguard its agreement with the International Monetary Fund and protect the growth in the economy.
There was also a proposal to pay the arrears of more than $20 billion over a five-year period - from 2013 through to 2018.
"I am not unreasonable. I understand there are challenges and we are going through a recession, but when we warned the Government and when the United States and other countries were taking action to tell their people, our Government told us that the recession was good for Jamaica," Simpson Miller said.
"... Even the dead suffering under the JLP (Jamaica Labour Party). All I keep hearing from my brother Bruce is that "we're changing the game". Well, I have a message for you tonight; you are not changing the game. What you have done is to colt the game."