JCSA parks concession point to get stalled compensation talks going
Published:Tuesday | October 11, 2022 | 12:11 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
President of the Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA) O’Neil Grant says the union has placed the issue of duty concessions on motor vehicles on the “back burner” as they work to reach an agreement with the Government on the restructuring of compensation for the public sector.
Unions have been at loggerheads with the Government since it revealed plans to discontinue the 20 per cent duty concession on motor vehicles under the compensation restructure. This particular item dominated public discourse, and according to Grant, greatly delayed the negotiation process.
“If we had continued trying to resolve the duty concession issue, it would have only caused us to become deadlocked and not be able to move ahead,” Grant told The Gleaner.
“While it is still not yet resolved, we and the Government have decided that we are not going to continue those discussions now,” he said. “We are going to basically take it off the table, put it on the back burner to allow for the other aspects of the compensation review to go forth.”
However, he said discussions on this “fundamental benefit” will be ongoing until March of next year.
“One thing we can say for sure is as long as a worker uses their vehicle for the Government’s work, then we will be claiming some kind of relief for it from the capital side by the giving of a concession. That is quite clear and we have not resigned from that. That is our strong position,” Grant said.
In the final update sent to his members on the compensation review process, Grant indicated that the union was now at a point where it could proceed with the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Government to guide how civil servants are compensated.
But he said there are still lingering concerns that are being ironed out in consultations with the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service. This includes the new 16-band structure developed by the ministry to facilitate the alignment of salaries of public sector workers across the various subsectors.
“The JCSA is having concerns regarding the conversion rules. In particular, the rule that says all officers are to be moved back to their minimum and an exception has been made for persons who are in receipt of seniority,” he said.
“We have looked back at our position, and we are maintaining that we want the workers to move from a point-to-point basis, so the Government is to come back to us with a view to ensure that we have an agreed mechanism for the conversion of persons to the new system,” he said.
Grant contends that seniority must be looked at to ensure that persons just entering the service are not put at the same level as those who have been in place for a long time, earning the same salary after the restructuring.
The JCSA head said that he has received the go-ahead to sign the memorandum of understanding by the end of this year if satisfied with how the issues are being addressed.
“We’re hoping that we can apply enough resources so that we don’t miss the next window, which should be December,” he said. “We do believe that the positions of the unions are quite reasonable, and we’re hoping that the Government can see how reasonable we are in putting forward our concerns.”
Meanwhile, Jamaica Police Federation Chairman Corporal Rohan James told The Gleaner that he has not been satisfied with the compensation review process so far.
“The only thing that the minister has done is seeking to want to lecture us on economics. We are not at the university at this time. We are seeking about the well-being and the welfare of membership and the security and safety of this nation,” he said.