LABOUR Minister Horace Dalley yesterday acquired a Supreme Court injunction preventing disgruntled JPSCo workers from striking for 30 days and invited representatives of the unions and the company to a meeting this afternoon to try and resolve the impasse.

The meeting, Dalley said in a statement issued to the media, is scheduled for 3:00 pm at the labour ministry’s headquarters at 1F North Street.

Officials of the National Workers Union (NWU) and the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) could not be reached last night for a response to Dalley’s invitation. However, Reg Ennis of the Union of Technical, Administrative and Supervisory Personnel (UTASP), which represents over 400 JPSCo (Jamaica Public Service Company) workers, said he had a meeting scheduled with the light and power company for 10:00 this morning.

“We will continue negotiations tomorrow (today) at 10:00 am and discuss the outstanding issues relating to evaluation payment,” said Ennis.

The workers represented by the NWU and BITU decided to go on strike yesterday afternoon after a mid-day deadline for the company to agree to make retroactive wage payments to the staff by Christmas expired.

The unions are arguing that the staff is owed the money, going back to January last year, because of a regrading of salaries from a job evaluation that was done by management consultant Dr Trevor Hamilton.

The evaluation started before the government sold 80 per cent of the JPSCo for US$183 million to the American firm, Mirant Corporation, in March last year.

But the unions are insisting that they and Mirant had signed a memorandum of understanding on April 5, 2000 stating that all terms and conditions, including payment, remained the same as before the acquisition.

Yesterday, the JPSCo said the shortened strike “had limited effect on the company’s operations which have continued as a result of the commitment and dedication of employees represented by the Managers’ Association and UTASP, as well as non-unionised workers and some employees represented by the NWU and BITU”.

The company said the disagreement with the NWU and BITU remained unresolved because the unions have not yet submitted a claim for a new wage agreement, although one was requested by JPSCo.

“The company maintains that it is opposed to a piece-meal settlement of compensation packages,” a JPSCo statement said last night. “The job evaluation results will only positively impact approximately 500 of the company’s 1,700 employees.”

Ennis, meanwhile, said UTASP had not issued an ultimatum to the JPSCo management and would continue negotiations. “We have been in negotiations over a year now and will continue,” he said.

He said that this morning’s meeting was private, between the JPSCo president, Charles Matthews, and UTASP delegates.

“The letter was delivered and addressed to me and no one else. I cannot say whether the others (unions) are invited.”