MOU sub-committee completes work
THE sub-committee looking into the proposals from the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) to save the public sector Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) said yesterday that it has completed its work.
According to a release issued jointly by the minister of state in the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Fitz Jackson, and Jamaica Civil Service Association president, Wayne Jones, the sub-committee has made recommendations to the minister, Dr Omar Davies, to be presented to Cabinet on Monday.
However, the recommendations have not yet been discussed by the monitoring committee of the MOU, from which the special sub-committee was formed. The release said that the monitoring committee is to discuss the recommendations next week.
Neither Jackson nor Jones were available yesterday to explain why the recommendations of the sub-committee were being referred to Monday’s cabinet meeting, prior to being presented and discussed by the MOU monitoring committee.
JCTU president Senator Dwight Nelson could not explain, but told the Observer that “whatever is recommended will have to be approved by the monitoring committee”.
The JCTU had suggested at last Thursday’s meeting of the monitoring committee that as conditions for sticking with the MOU it wanted:
. an immediate hardship payment to all public sector employees;
. bringing forward the second tier of the increased income tax threshold from January, 2006 to October, 2005; and
. allowing tax relief to the public sector workers on a number of fringe benefits.
In response, the monitoring committee, which is chaired by Dr Davies, appointed the sub-committee comprising government representatives Dennis Morrison, Dr Wesley Hughes and Colin Bullock and JCTU representatives Wayne Jones, Lambert Brown and Helene Davis-White to look at the proposals.
But Prime Minister P J Patterson told Monday’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House that he had instructed cabinet ministers, including the finance minister, Dr Omar Davies, to meet with the JCTU to seek a settlement by yesterday.
