A longstanding issue with the pay and staffing structure of the University of Technology (UTech), Jamaica Jamaica heating up for 23 years, is now at its boiling point.

Tension is high among administrative, technical and ancillary staff who have said that they are angry and remain restive about the matter that is yet to be resolved by the Government, despite multiple attempts to come to a resolution.

Since Thursday, disgruntled staff began staging a silent protest at the university by placing posters around the compound highlighting their grouses.

Staff told the Jamaica Observer that they are upset that more than two decades after they first raised their grievances, the matter has been going back and forth between staff unions and the ministries of Education and Youth; and Finance and the Public Service with no resolution in sight.

They are demanding that their salaries be increased and brought up to par with other tertiary level institutions in the country.

According to chief union delegate for the University and Allied Workers Union (UAWU) which represents the ancillary and technical staff of the university, Bridget Johnson Smith, affected staff are mainly angry about the slow pace at which their request for parity – which is tied to increased pay – is being advanced.

“This is not a new issue. This has been an issue from 2000 and many persons have died…. If you have a situation for 23 years, when are you going to look at the situation?” she queried.

Johnson Smith explained that when the institution changed over from a college to university status, technical and ancillary staff were not recognised on the university structure. UTech was formally accorded university status in 1995.

“So in the year 2000, we went on strike because all of us were being paid ancillary staff pay. So we said no, technical people and ancillary staff people can’t get the same pay. So we went on a strike for them to classify us to put us in, because it shouldn’t be so hard, you know? We are a [higher] educational institution and the University of the West Indies (UWI) is a higher education institution with technical, administrative ancillary staff. All they could have done was just benchmark us against the UWI structure,” she said.

Johnson Smith said the Ministry of Finance requested that a classification be done and this took place in 2000. She noted, however, that the Government did not approve that classification. A reclassification was then to be done in 2006-2008.

“We have those heads of agreement that are signed. The classification was done; it was not implemented…We went to the Ministry of Finance in December 2019 and they told us that we should wait until the compensation review for them to implement our reclassification but until now that has not been done,” she said, noting that in a separate salary-related matter, in that same year there was a major strike by UTech’s academic staff.

She said that subsequently, the Finance Ministry negotiated with the academic staff union, “and paid them 80 per cent of what UWI academic staff were getting”. She said lower level staff are upset about this move as “what they should have done was to have paid all the staff that 80 per cent to bring up everybody’s salary on par with the other university. They did not do that.”

“So what we are saying now is that because the academic staff and senior management, their salaries have been increased by that 80 per cent to get to par with UWI and other similar educational institutions and so, now we are saying implement our reclassification or put us up to par with the other institution,” she said.

The union delegate further contended that UTech’s technical staff are paid below that of market, arguing that when UTech and UWI salaries are benchmarked “there’s a vast difference,” adding there is also scope for upward mobility at UWI, unlike at UTech where this only applies to the academic staff.

“So we want our money, we want to be on par. We want to be able to go to the supermarket easily, we want to pay our bills easily…So that’s all we’re asking, give us enough money so that we can live; we are not asking for anything else,” she stressed.

Johnson Smith was, however, quick to point out that the staff’s anger is not directed at the management of the university but the two ministries they are currently battling with.

“We really don’t want to bring the university’s name into disrepute. This really has nothing to do with the present management team of the university. It has everything to do with the two ministries that we have to deal with – the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance because when the university was asked to take on the school of nursing, they were asked to take on public health school, they were also asked to take on the school of oral health. So Government asked UTech to take on those schools since 2008 and what they never sent the resources to the university,” she claims.

“So what has been happening now, is every time you approach the ministry, they would tell you that the university is overstaffed. How did we get there? But then, recently, we heard that at a Cabinet meeting that they have now accepted our staff complement. But where do we go from there? Right now, all staff want to hear is when they will be getting a salary increase. They don’t want to hear anything else,” she said. In the meantime, President of the University of Technology Jamaica Administrative Staff Association (UTASA), Janette Grayson said administrative staff are very disgruntled after being sidelined when the academic staff were compensated in 2019.

“And to make matters worse, early this year one level of the administrative staff was selected and received parity and retroactive payment and again the lower level was told there is no money to pay lower levels,” she said.

She noted that the unions have not only been meeting with the parent ministries to seek to correct the issue, but they have also met with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to try to avoid taking industrial action.

“The staff are very restive and this is so because UTech has not yet received our timetable from the Transformation Implementation Unit (TIU) as it relates to the Government’s compensation adjustment. Nevertheless, the unions continue to work with our management and the parent ministries with a view to bring some calm and solution to the issues,” she said.

There is, however, a silver lining on the horizon for lower level staff as the Ministry of Finance has asked to meet with UTech’s management and unions on Tuesday to start the deliberations re pay parity for all lower levels of staff from one to 11.

“I hope that meeting will be a fruitful meeting,” Johnson Smith said.

“I am just hoping that this will be resolved sooner than later, because I think that people don’t realise that compensation is directly proportional to production, and so if persons are paid properly then you will see more production,” she added.