Public Services Association president Watson Duke said he will be meeting with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) later this month to discuss a proposal for the State to deposit $15,000 in the account of every single public servant as part payment of outstanding arrears.
At a press conference yesterday, Duke said, “We have been contacted by the CPO’s office, and in a mad rush to avoid paying that money, she has now given us dates outside of December 15.”
The dates, he indicated, are December 28, and January 8, 2019, to resume negotiations.
“We are going to put $15,000 tax-free on the table. If the Prime Minister want to finance a little hotel, a little guest house (Sandals) for eight billion dollars…can’t he pay?” he asked.
Earlier this year, Duke called for 15,000 one-off payment to some 80,000 public servants by August as a sign of goodwill.
“The average back-pay is over $20,000 for a three-year period. Now we are saying, based on the inflationary rate, we are saying at the minimum, give workers $15,000 as an ex-gratia payment towards their arrears owed to them from 2010 right up to 2018.”
He also urged Government to return to the National Tripartite Advisory Council (NTAC) for discussions. —Rishard Khan