Gov­ern­ing re­spon­si­bly de­mands a clear fo­cus on the fu­ture, sup­port­ed by sound man­age­ment and in­vest­ment de­ci­sions tak­en in the present.

Few is­sues re­quire this more than the on­go­ing con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing pub­lic sec­tor wage ne­go­ti­a­tions and the ex­pec­ta­tions of oth­er unions.

While an agree­ment ap­pears to have been con­clud­ed with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) for the 2014–2019 bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od, fun­da­men­tal ques­tions re­main, in­clud­ing why did the set­tle­ment not dis­cuss pro­vi­sions for both cash and non-cash pay­ments?

More crit­i­cal­ly, does the high­er set­tle­ment grant­ed to the PSA now cre­ate a bench­mark that oth­er unions can rea­son­ably ex­pect to be ap­plied to them? And what are the im­pli­ca­tions for the cur­rent six-year bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od from 2020 to 2025?

These are not aca­d­e­m­ic con­cerns. Left un­re­solved, they threat­en to un­set­tle the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions cli­mate, dis­tort fu­ture bud­get­ing, and weak­en pro­duc­tiv­i­ty across the pub­lic ser­vice. At a time when care­ful man­age­ment of ex­pec­ta­tions is es­sen­tial, un­cer­tain­ty and in­con­sis­ten­cy risk fu­elling con­fronta­tion rather than co­op­er­a­tion.

In­to this al­ready sen­si­tive en­vi­ron­ment stepped Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Clyde El­der, whose re­marks sug­gest­ed that unions aligned with­in a “coali­tion of in­ter­ests” could ex­pect pref­er­en­tial treat­ment.

Com­ing from a for­mer labour leader, but one with no di­rect re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for labour re­la­tions, the com­ments were both ill-judged and in­flam­ma­to­ry. More trou­bling still, they cut against the min­is­ter’s con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion to treat all cit­i­zens and in­sti­tu­tions equal­ly, and risk politi­cis­ing a process that must re­main prin­ci­pled and im­par­tial.

Un­sur­pris­ing­ly, union lead­ers re­spond­ed with alarm. The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union warned that such an ap­proach risks turn­ing in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions in­to a form of po­lit­i­cal co­er­cion. The Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion re­ject­ed the no­tion that com­pen­sa­tion should be linked to par­tic­i­pa­tion in po­lit­i­cal or strate­gic al­liances. The Steel Work­ers Union cau­tioned that re­duc­ing col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing to a sys­tem of po­lit­i­cal re­ward and pun­ish­ment would strike at the very foun­da­tion of the process.

Min­is­ter El­der, on Fri­day took a dif­fer­ent ap­proach, this time point­ing out in­stead, that con­tracts al­ready signed can­not be re­done to copy the PSA pay­out.

How­ev­er, some unions are con­vinced that there is a dis­par­i­ty in treat­ment, com­pound­ed even more with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo’s con­fir­ma­tion that on­ly PSA mem­bers will re­ceive part of their ar­rears in cash be­fore Christ­mas while oth­ers whose agree­ments were signed ear­li­er, are sched­uled for the first quar­ter of 2026.

The Gov­ern­ment is cur­rent­ly en­gaged with at least eleven recog­nised bar­gain­ing units in the pub­lic sec­tor. While their size and in­flu­ence may dif­fer, the stan­dards gov­ern­ing com­pen­sa­tion, fair­ness, and good faith must be ap­plied uni­form­ly.

Any sug­ges­tion that some groups are more de­serv­ing than oth­ers be­cause of po­lit­i­cal align­ment will cor­rode trust and sta­bil­i­ty in the pub­lic ser­vice.

Man­ag­ing pub­lic sec­tor pay de­mands re­quires a co­her­ent, trans­par­ent frame­work that bal­ances the le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tions of all unions, aligns with fis­cal re­al­i­ty, and sup­ports pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and ser­vice de­liv­ery.

A func­tion­al and ef­fi­cient pub­lic ser­vice de­pends on com­pen­sa­tion sys­tems ground­ed in eq­ui­ty, mer­i­toc­ra­cy, and per­for­mance. Above all, po­lit­i­cal favour can­not be, or ap­pear to be, a defin­ing fac­tor.

Fail­ure to man­age this prop­er­ly can see to­day’s ex­pe­di­ent de­ci­sions be­com­ing to­mor­row’s cost­ly dis­putes.