Sickout cripples operations at some RGD offices
Staff action over compensation review could continue today
Published:Tuesday | February 14, 2023 | 1:09 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Registrar General’s Department (RGD) CEO Charlton McFarlane has indicated that he cannot guarantee that normal operations will resume at the agency’s 10 offices islandwide on Tuesday, following Monday’s sickout by disgruntled staff, who are upset with their alignment under the new public sector compensation scheme.
Hundreds of people who visited RGD offices yesterday were left disappointed when they either faced lengthy delays or no service at all.
McFarlane told The Gleaner on Monday evening that “all offices would have been below 50 per cent of staff complement”.
At the head office in Twickenham Park, about 70 staffers out of the 200-member team showed up for work. In Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth, only one staff member reported for duty, while the Montego Bay office in St James had two staff members; and the downtown Kingston office had only six staff members.
The Santa Cruz, St Ann’s Bay, Port Antonio, and Savanna-la-Mar offices were closed on Monday.
McFarlane said that the Mandeville, Manchester, and May Pen, Clarendon, officers saw minimal impact.
“I believe those offices eventually had full complement today. They started out with less than full complement, but as the morning progressed, the other staff members turned up to work,” he said.
Last Friday, workers issued a strike notice alleging “unfair treatment” over the apparent revision of pay scales that they feel would have been disadvantageous to them. The workers say that in November 2022, the ministry gave them a 13-band salary scale that was rejected because of “several anomalies”. They responded to the ministry with several recommendations.
Last month, the ministry sent a revised scale to the RGD that increased the salary bands to 14. Staff were also trained to use the new system.
However, they allege that on Friday a new email came from the ministry indicating that the 14-band upgrade was “an error and we were reverted to a 13-band salary scale”.
“On this premise, the staff is restive and there is no guarantee that there will be normalcy across the RGD,” noted a document obtained by The Gleaner.
With scaled-down operations on Monday, scores of people seeking to register births, deaths and marriages or seeking to collect burial orders were turned away.
Persons who would have planned to get married at RGD offices islandwide were also impacted as well as those seeking to conduct business at the records office, including those recording wills or applying for a power of attorney.
McFarlane said that contingencies would be put in place in the event that the sickout continues on Tuesday, but he could not guarantee the success of those measures.
“The RGD is a specialised organisation and is also a monopoly organisation. The contingencies that we looked at and can put in would be to offer reduced services, as in look at the scope of services that we offer and determine which services can go on with minimal disruption, but I’m hoping that we don’t have to come to that,” he told The Gleaner.
“I’m hoping that we’ll see a return to normalcy because even with the best and most efficient of contingencies, if the staff complement is not one that facilitates or allows those contingencies, then we will still have a problem,” the CEO added.
He disclosed that up to Monday afternoon, RGD staff union representatives were still locked in a meeting with the leadership of the Jamaica Civil Service Association.