BLENHEIM, Hanover — Assistant general secretary of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) Colin Virgo has suggested that ulterior motives are behind at least one of the remaining public sector worker groups not signing on to the ongoing efforts at compensation review.

“They have their own union, so I am not trying to speak on their union’s behalf. But one of the tricky things about life is that different people have different viewpoints on the same thing, but also different people have different motives. And I leave it there for now because sometimes, unfortunately, what you hear the leadership of some of the associations saying is not necessarily reflective of the view of the membership,” stated Virgo.

Asked if he was referencing the police and teachers, Virgo replied, “I am saying more so about one of those particular groups that you reference; that there is always more to things than meets the eye.”

He was speaking with the Jamaica Observer on Friday following a civic ceremony in Blenheim, Hanover, to mark the 139th birth celebration of Jamaica’s first prime minister and national hero, Sir Alexander Bustamante.

Last December, the Government started to implement the long-awaited public sector compensation review which is aimed at overhauling the structure of salaries and other packages in the public service to make it more equitable. The compensations are retroactive to April 1, 2022.

While several groups have signed on to the new compensation system, the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) and the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) are among the groups that have not yet done so. On Friday Virgo — the assistant general secretary of the largest union in the Caribbean — repeated the Jamaican Government’s assertion that no one will be worse off. Even though salaries are made up of different packages for some people, he stressed base salaries are what determine retirement and redundancy packages. He argued that under the review, people with fewer compensation packages are set to benefit more.

“Everybody’s benefit might not be the same. In other words, some people get a bigger benefit than others. One of the things I’m happiest about is that it is the lowest-paid set of workers who have gotten the best benefit out of this exercise overall, but every single public sector worker if they had benefited from this exercise in no other way, although there have been multiple ways but even if they had benefited from this exercise in no other way, it automatically and immediately represents a significant improvement in their pension,” said Virgo.

He said the Andrew Holness-led Administration is finally enacting a process that started 60 years ago under the leadership of Bustamante.

“It is 60 years now they are trying to have a comprehensive public sector overhaul and it is the first in history that [Minister of Finance and the Public Service] Nigel Clarke, Andrew Holness and the Government of Jamaica have gotten that done. It took 60 years of technocrats trying to figure out how to get it done,” he said.

Meanwhile Virgo, among those who have long trumpeted the need to do away with contract employment in the private and public sectors, used Friday’s civic function to call on Member of Parliament for Hanover Western Tamika Davis to remind the Government about the need to do so.

“A lot of us wouldn’t know that men used to get more pay than a woman to do the same work and Sir Alexander Bustamante started out righting that wrong from 1964. Never mind that some other people come later on and say it is them, but I am 100 per cent certain and the record is there to show and he said that it must start with the Government,” said Virgo. “So, when the parliamentary caucus meets, my good friend, the Member of Parliament for this constituency, MP Tamika Davis, you can remind them that I come here every year and mi nah stop saying it until it is done. We must do away with this business of contract work. Contract work is one of the greatest injustices ever done.”

Virgo later told the Observer that there are only three conditions under which contractual employment should be utilised.

Among the three are supplementary works in which there is a short-term demand for extra employees, and relief work in which temporary workers are brought in to fill a vacancy left by people who are on study leave and maternity leave. The third is what is called a fixed-term project where a worker is able to work for more than one entity.

“But in other instances, people need to be tenured workers. And, why is it important? Because it affects their pension. It affects their ability to get a mortgage. What do you want them to do, sit down and live in a rented house forever? It affects your ability to be able to get a car loan as a contract worker,” stated Virgo.