Senators paid five times parliamentary staff per sitting
Published:Tuesday | January 5, 2021 | 12:15 AM
The cries for some categories of parliamentary workers to be paid a decent wage are expected to get louder with new revelation that members of the Upper House are paid a stipend of $53,000 per sitting and a similar amount for attending committee meetings.
This is nearly five times the sum paid to orderlies for weekly wages.
Late last year, opposition Senator Lambert Brown made an impassioned plea for the wages and salaries paid to orderlies and Hansard writers to be improved this year.
His remarks came after he researched and discovered that orderlies received from a basic minimum of $9,860 per week to a maximum of $11,156 per week, effective April 1, 2020.
Brown had charged during the sitting of the Senate late last year that the compensation paid to the orderlies was woefully inadequate when compared to the stipend that senators receive for attending sittings.
Information obtained from the Houses of Parliament revealed that there was a 211 per cent increase in the stipend paid to senators for attending each sitting.
The stipend, which moved from $17,000 in April 2016, was approved by Cabinet.
The Gleaner was informed by Parliament that the amount was calculated at twice the rate of the highest board fees in the public sector.
Orderlies are assigned a wide range of duties in order to facilitate the smooth running of the legislature. This category of parliamentary staff falls under the LMO/TS2 group in the public sector.