JCSA accuses Gov’t of foul play in compensation review

The leadership of the Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA) has accused the finance ministry of acting in bad faith and violating labour relations and collective bargaining recommendations by taking steps, under the compensation review exercise, to eliminate benefits to workers represented by the union even though negotiations for fiscal year 2021-2022 are not yet complete.

O’Neil Grant, president of the JCSA, said that from March 2021, the association has had an active claim before the ministry for the period 2021-2022. He said that despite several attempts to have the claim negotiated and settled, the ministry has engaged in “obfuscation and delaying tactics to frustrate all efforts to have the claim settled”.

He said the union has in its possession a document from the ministry called ‘Benefits’ which highlights the very items of claim that the union has been trying to have negotiated and settled.

“The apparent context of the ministry’s approach is to place the JCSA claim items under the compensation review and eliminate them without our negotiations being settled,” the JCSA said in a news release.

In a Gleaner interview yesterday, Grant said that the ministry’s latest action has resulted in an erosion of trust in the ministry.

“You can’t have a claim before the ministry wanting to negotiate the claim, not getting any traction on it, then you see a document coming out to say that these are to be discontinued and you had an opportunity to speak about them and that wasn’t raised and so it goes now to an issue of trust,” Grant insisted.

NEED TO REBUILD TRUST

He argued that the trust has been impacted and it has to be rebuilt, noting that the ministry will have to give some concessions in order to rebuild that trust.

“I think the best way for it to be done is for the ministry to withdraw [the document] and just apologise for how it handled the matter. They did make a mistake and they have to accept that they made a mistake.”

He said while a clarification circular has been sent out to permanent secretaries, the ministry has not yet responded formally to the union’s concerns.

In a media release on Wednesday, an apparently peeved Grant demanded that the ministry withdraw the document immediately and tender a “public apology to the JCSA and its membership” and move with urgency to settle the union’s negotiations with effect from April 1, 2021.

Grant warned that the “irresponsible and disrespectful behaviour” by the ministry towards the JCSA will not be tolerated and has the potential to derail the peaceful industrial relations climate in the public sector.

According to Grant, the document labelled ‘Benefits’ seems targeted at the JCSA “as we do not see any of the benefits negotiated by the police, teachers, doctors, fire officers and nurses organisations being targeted by the Ministry of Finance”.

The JCSA president has indicated that it might not be business as usual going forward in the public sector.

At the same time, the Union of Clerical Administrative and Supervisory Employees (UCASE) says while it supports the Government’s compensation review project, there were issues of concern to the union and those it represents.

President of UCASE, Vincent Morrison, said that unions outside of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions have been left out of the consultation process.

TAX IMPLICATIONS

He argued that attempts to compress more than 316 categories and allowances into 16 groups in the public sector, without the proper scientific approach, could create some challenges and anomalies in the system.

“The idea of rolling allowances into basic pay to bolster or increase compensation may look good at a glance or on the surface, and it may provide a modicum of support for employees gaining early pension, but we must not be unmindful of the tax implications that will be posed as a result,” he said in a release yesterday.

Morrison said that in keeping with Jamaica’s labour laws and code, enough communication, discussion and consultation had not been done in the compensation review exercise.

“UCASE, therefore, will have to carefully examine what is presented for and on behalf of our membership, to ensure that it is in the best interest of our members,” he added.

In recent statement to The Gleaner, Finance and the Public Service Minister Dr Nigel Clarke said that the Government was embarking on an ambitious policy of restructuring of public-sector compensation.

This policy reform, according to the finance minister, will create a new compensation system that is simple, fair, consistent, transparent, efficient, fiscally sustainable and that better allows the Government to attract and retain the talent needed to run a modern bureaucracy.

Clarke said the Government is engaged in consultations with unions and bargaining groups that are its strategic partners.

“We expect these consultations to intensify in coming weeks with a view towards beginning the implementation of the restructured public-sector compensation in the second quarter of the fiscal year.”