Brown pleads for pay hike for Gordon House staff
Published:Monday | December 21, 2020 | 12:13 AM
A senior opposition senator has made an impassioned plea for the remuneration offered to various categories of workers in the nation’s Parliament to be improved in 2021.
Highlighting the plight of the parliamentary staff, Lambert Brown said he carried out research recently and discovered that the sums paid to the orderlies were woefully inadequate when compared to the stipend that senators receive for attending sittings and committee meetings. He described the inequity as stark.
Orderlies are assigned a wide range of duties on the floor of Parliament in order to facilitate the smooth running of the legislature. This category of parliamentary workers falls under the LMO/TS2 group in the public sector. Orderlies receive from a basic minimum of $9,860 per week to a maximum of $11,156 per week, effective April 1, 2020.
Brown digressed on Friday to comment on the predicament of the Gordon House staff as he debated a bill to amend the National Housing Trust Act to allow the Government to draw down $57 billion from the housing entity over the next five years to cushion the economic impact of COVID-19.
Senators are currently being paid about $21,000 for attending each sitting, almost twice the amount orderlies at the top of the scale receive for pay weekly.
He said parliamentarians often laud the staff for the excellent work that they are doing. However, he challenged his colleague lawmakers in both the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament to check the remuneration provided for orderlies and stenographers.
“I am making a plea in the spirit of Hugh Lawson Shearer for the staff of the Parliament in 2021 not just to talk about a new Parliament building ... but to look after the staff, treat them as a unique group,” the trade unionist said.
The late Hugh Shearer, Jamaica’s third prime minister, was a respected trade unionist, too.
The Sunday Gleaner reported recently the plight of disgruntled staff of Parliament who divulged the difficulties they face as they extend themselves beyond the call of duty to keep the wheels of the legislature turning.
Inadequate staffing was highlighted as one of the challenges confronting the Hansard writers, which is reportedly contributing to burnout on the job. Hansard is the official verbatim records of Parliament.
At present, there are seven Hansard writers, with three of that number being retirees who have been retained on contract.
The full complement of Hansard writers is about 12.