Well now isn't this interesting: Carib workers get a 15 per cent increase for the period 2010-2013. Clearly the message here is that it pays better to manufacture beers than to be in the public service. Whereas the management of Carib Brewery recognises that its workers will need at least 15 per cent more on their salary to be able to go to work and do their jobs up to 2013, the employer of the public service obviously doesn't see things as benevolently. Instead, the employer says to their workers: "Having regard to your performance in the last three years and the unbearable strain that you have been under, you deserve just five per cent.
"Those long hours you put in preparing for the annual budget, paying salaries on time, processing passport applications by the thousands and so on obviously doesn't equate to the distilling and bottling of beers." For good measure, I note that police officers have begun to receive their duty allowance from December. Just imagine that a duty allowance of $1,000 equates to about 25 per cent of a monthly salary, if we assume that the average salary of an officer is in the range of $5,000 a month. So they get 25 per cent in one fell swoop without negotiation, without asking, but for public servants it's one per cent for begging, two per cent for protesting and another two per cent for the temerity to ask for a raise. How's that for Christmas cheer courtesy the People's Partnership?
Lystra Marajh
Glencoe