Wildcat industrial action by unionised employees of the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) yesterday led to power cuts affecting some 58,000 customers in seven parishes.

The JPS reported last night that customers in sections of Clarendon, Manchester, St Ann, St Catherine, St Elizabeth, St James and St Thomas had lost their supply up to last night because of the action.

However, at a meeting with minister of labour and social security, Pearnel Charles, at Jamaica House, the unions agreed to instruct a resumption of work to facilitate a continuation of the ministry's conciliatory efforts today.
Charles told the Sunday Observer last night that he will be meeting again with unions at 10:00 am today at Jamaica House to attempt to resolve all the issues surrounding the controversial reclassification issue which dates back to 2001.

The power cuts experienced up to last night were due to the JPS taking some of its generating units off-line because of the strike. The company warned that other customers could face interruptions in in the next 24 - 48 hours, if the strike continued although some of the workers were still on the job.

The strike was triggered by the company's decision to terminate the services of two teams of consultants working on a job evaluation and compensation review project - Trevor Hamilton and Associates and FocalPoint Consulting Limited.

The consultants had been engaged over the last few months in the computation of amounts due to individual JPS employees for the period 2001 - 2007 under the reclassification exercise.

Strikes by workers in the essential services, including the JPS, are illegal under the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act.

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