IN three weeks, nurses are supposed to receive the first tranche of payments in a $430-million wage settlement signed with Government Tuesday at the Ministry of Labour.

The Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) accepted a memorandum of understanding after months of negotiations, but has still expressed caution about its timely implementation.

“Our members have ratified the position per constitution that at this time they will take a cautious agreement,” NAJ president Edith Allwood-Anderson said at Tuesday’s signing.

She said that although the MOU had been signed, Government had not given the nurses a schedule of payments.

“Today (Tuesday) is the first of December; we hope that we will not have to resume a public education campaign for payment,” Allwood-Anderson declared.

At the signing, which was attended by Health Minister Rudyard Spencer, Minister of Labour Pearnel Charles, and junior minister in the finance ministry, Arthur Williams, The NAJ president said that the MOU was an agreement made by others that was given to the nurses.

Spencer, however, assured the nurses that there should be no need to campaign for payments as a team would be meeting with Finance Minister Audley Shaw to ensure that payments were made before Christmas.

He said the date of the salary payments would be announced next week.

According to Spencer, he was happy that the settlement was made at the labour ministry rather than at the Industrial Disputes Tribunal as the outcome might not have been favourable to Government.

“At the tribunal, the nurses would present their case, the ministry would present its case, and the tribunal would hand down an award to both parties that’s binding,” argued Spencer.

“Invariably, it’s not the sort of settlement the ministry of finance would have liked,” he said.

The health minister explained that negotiations at the labour ministry symbolised more a ‘giving and taking’ against the background of what the country could afford at this time.

After protracted and sometimes acrimonious negotiations, the nurses’ dispute was referred to the Ministry of Labour for settlement in late October.

The nurses have been complaining about a longstanding delay in reclassification and disputing adjusted wage payments as Government cuts its public sector expenditure.

In what he described as a ‘historic moment’, Charles commended the nurses saying that they had made a significant compromise .

“Jamaica is not in a position to pay those of who deserve more and we must recognise those who are making the effort and say thanks to them,” Charles said.

— Patrick Foster