By Balford Henry, News Editor
Bustamante Industrial Trades Union (BITU) negotiating officer, Wesley Nelson (right), answering questions at a press briefing yesterday at the National Workers Union (NWU) head office, East Street, Kingston. At left is NWU president, Clive Dobson. - Norman Grindley /Staff Photographer
THE JAMAICA Public Service Company's (JPSCo) management said yesterday that it was concerned about the nature of a ruling by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) on its salary structure and the principle of retroactive payment arising from a recent job evaluation.
In a release yesterday, the company said that it was concerned about the nature of the ruling, "as it does not lend itself to a speedy resolution (of the matter), in the absence of a clear basis and or process for implementation." The company said, however, that notwithstanding the ruling, it was anxious to resume and conclude negotiations on a new agreement with workers before year end.
Both the Bustamante Industrial Trades Union (BITU) and the National Workers Union (NWU) welcomed the Tribunal's award yesterday and accused the company's current management of "trying to impose a new culture on us," in terms of management-union relationship. They accused the new owners of the company, Mirant, of failing to accept the essence of their memorandum of understanding.
SAME ISSUE
The dispute resolved by the IDT was the same issue which led to last year's strike by a number of employees over whether the workers should be paid retroactive wages arising from a job evaluation exercise. The company had informed the unions that it did not embrace the idea of retroactivity and would only pay the new rates effective from the date of a new labour agreement which has been suspended, pending resolution of the job evaluation and compensation review exercise issues.
After several abortive attempts to resolve the issue, Minister of Labour and Social Security, Horace Dalley, referred the matter to the IDT in February this year.
The main issues before the IDT were: the salary structure at the company that should be implemented based on the job evaluation and compensation review exercise; and the effective date for retroactive payments arising from them.
The unions argued that based on a Peat Marwick/ KPMG study, the company made a unilateral decision to establish a new compensation package, averaging pay packets of 11 companies, which would make wages there uncompetitive. The company said that its compensation package would ensure that it remains in the top four companies in the salary survey and that all four bargaining units were being compensated at or above market.
RETROACTIVITY
In terms of the retroactivity issue, the unions said that the company's refusal to pay retroactively gains from the job evaluation and review was not in keeping with the intent and spirit of their collective agreement. The company disagreed, saying that it had no obligation under the terms of the agreement to pay any retroactivity.
The IDT awarded that the salary structure implemented based on the reviews must conform with and maintain established compensation policy/philosophy agreed on in their 1990/91 Heads of Agreement, which would require a formula of the company maintaining its position among the top five to ten per cent of the benchmarked market; and that the effective date of the new rates should be January 1, 2001 (from which date the payments will be retroactive) when the exercises were completed.
The Tribunal comprised Donovan Hunter, chairman, Evert Palmer and Dr. Trevor McNish. The JPSCo was represented by attorney-at-law Dennis Morrison and the unions by Clive Dobson, president of the NWU and Wesley Nelson, senior negotiator at the BITU.
