CMU boasts 98% staff sign on to new compensation packages

The majority of staff at the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) has signed off on the government’s compensation restructuring programme, which its president, Professor Andrew Spencer, believes is an indication of the high morale of employees at the seafaring training facility.

“We are proud to say that we have signed off by our employees; 98 per cent of individuals have signed off their new contracts with us,’’ he told journalists during a Gleaner Editors’ held last Wednesday at the newspaper’s North Street, Kingston offices.

Spencer explained that it came as a result of more than 18 months of negotiations between the school and the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, with himself and the school’s registrar determined to get a deal that would prevent the “most vulnerable being at a disadvantage”.

“We didn’t want the groundsman and the driver and the office attendants to be disenfranchised, and we made sure that they were taken care of,” he said of the institution that has 350 employees.

Of importance too, he said, was the need to reach an agreement that took into account the particular needs of the university.

“It was necessary that we had something which was specific to our university because we have unique considerations, one of them being, the Faculty of Marine and Nautical Studies, for example, where we have to attract faculty who make a lot of money at sea. Kind of like how The UWI (University of the West Indies) would have considered the Faculty of Medicine in its earlier days, so we needed to get those special considerations out of the way,” he said.

Dignity and stability,

Dr Evette Smith Johnson, CMU’s director of graduate studies and research, noted that the restructuring of staff who operated in acting positions to permanent roles was also a significant outcome of the compensation review.

“The remuneration aside … people work for dignity and stability,” she said.

The CMU’s achievement is in stark contrast to the protests that characterised salary negotiations at other local universities such as the University of Technology.

Following their most recent protest of the salary review that has been outstanding for more than five years, Jeanette Grayson, president of the University of Technology Administrative Staff Association (UTASA), told The Gleaner that a meeting was held with Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke two weeks ago where he committed that their concerns would be addressed by the end of April, with retroactive payments being made by October.

She said the staff were being cautiously optimistic.

“They are hoping for the best. We are aware that there was a situation in the past with the academic staff when there was a promise made and it was not really kept up to the standard that they had anticipated,” she said.

Resilient team

In the meantime, in highlighting the camaraderie among the CMU staff, Spencer shared that it was a quality he took note of when he assumed the helm of the institution on September 12, 2022.

According to the professor, it was a characteristic he sought to preserve.

“The CMU team is a resilient team and one of the things I said to them on my first day. I said to them, ‘Today is the day after 9/11 for a reason. Any catastrophe that has happened before, today is the day we start to rebuild ... What I’m happy for is that throughout all the turmoil, all of you stayed’,” he said.

Sharing that top management “disappeared” when the university was embroiled in the corruption scandal that triggered a multi-agency investigation, Smith Johnson added that she was happy that those who remained are being recognised.

“One of the things that we’re grateful about is that those of us who stayed and held the ship together have benefitted from the reorienting of the vessel. We have not been left behind and new people didn’t come and get the dibs that we held on for, and it was not based on tokenism … I do believe there is some level of competency in us, so that was good for morale too,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com