THE dispute between the National Water Commission (NWC) and its managers, which threatened a disruption of the supply of potable water to Jamaicans, has been settled.

The two parties found common ground during a virtual meeting with the Minister of Labour and Social Security Karl Samuda last Thursday, which will see the more than 200 NWC managers receiving a four per cent wage increase.

Opposition Senator Lambert Brown, who heads the University and Allied Workers Union, which represents the NWC workers, confirmed the wage agreement after a month-long dispute.

“The dispute between the National Water Commission and the National Water Commission Executive Staff Association has been settled. The parties agreed to make the payment of the four per cent increase to the staff and to sign off on the continuation of the ‘call-out allowance’, as existing,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.

“… We are happy that good sense prevailed and the workers are going to be paid, effective next month, with retroactive payments to be made thereafter,” said Brown, who guaranteed that there will be normality at the State-owned water commission.

Brown explained that the four per cent salary increase is applicable to NWC staff, but the company had paid it to all categories of workers, excluding managers.

The issue, Brown said, stemmed from the company’s move to apply changes to a benefit enjoyed by managers known as call-out allowance, where managers would be called from home for emergencies.

“That [benefit] is paid whether or not the managers received permission from vice-presidents to do the work. The company wanted to change that and the managers were saying, ‘No, that’s a benefit we have, we are paid when we go to do the work and we not changing the terms and conditions.’ Because of that, the NWC did not want to pay the four per cent unless the workers agreed to these new conditions of the call-out allowance, and that led to a breakdown in the negotiation,” he explained.

But President of the National Water Commission (NWC) Mark Barnett denied claims that the company was adamant in not providing the wage increase.

“I don’t think any report that you get about NWC not willing to pay four per cent is true. It is erroneous, not accurate, and it didn’t even warrant a response because that is not the fact. The NWC was always willing to pay four per cent as agreed by the Government based on last year’s wage agreement. What was of contention was a matter of the call-out allowance; it has nothing to do with the wage increase,” he said.