KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) is insisting that it will not sign a new Heads of Agreement with the Government for public sector workers, unless it frees the union to negotiate with profitable public bodies on the basis of their ability to pay.

“We have told the minister that we are not going to sign unless there is an agreement that these bodies, which are making huge profits, agree to negotiate with us on the basis of what improvements they can afford individually,” Wesley Nelson, the union’s senior vice-president, told OBSERVER ONLINE this morning.

The BITU is among 11 trade unions negotiating with the Government for improvements in the wages and working conditions of thousands of unionised Government employees, under the umbrella of the JCTU.

The Government has now formalised its offer of an increase of $4,000 per month across the board to its employees over the two years which an agreement is anticipated to last. This has replaced the seven per cent offer, which has been rejected across the public sector landscape.

Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and Planning Horace Dalley is to send a draft of the Heads of Agreement to the unions this week for them to review and respond by next week.

 A new agreement is expected to be signed by next weekend with the JCTU member unions, which also include the National Workers Union (NWU) and the Jamaica Civil Service Association, and represents the largest bargaining group involved in the current negotiations.

The minister has not yet made the offer to professional groups such as teachers, nurses, doctors and the police. However, it has received a favourable response from the JCTU unions and is likely to be signed before the end of July.

Balford Henry