THE ISLANDWIDE SICK-OUT by members of the police force is a potential threat to national security for more than the obvious reasons. Under the Constabulary Force Act, it is unlawful for a sub-officer or constable to join a trade union; what is more, the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act does not cover policemen - or members of the Jamaica Defence Force for that matter.

So that the protracted dispute over pay increases for the members of the Police Federation, on the face of it, is less amenable to settlement by the routine facilities of the Ministry of Labour. The dispute does not come under the aegis of the Industrial Disputes Tribunal, as other sectors of the economy would.

Since policemen have no legal right to strike, the scope of labour protest invites the subterfuge of the sick-out which by its nature smacks of deceit. What is involved is the pretence of illness contrived on a massive scale to avoid penalty. The sick-out is regarded as disreputable as the go-slow in the pantheon of negative labour relations practices.

It is untidy and indeed dangerous for the principal guardians of national security to have to resort to feigning illness in a nation beset by a high rate of crime. Without the immediate benefit of the conciliation machinery of the Ministry of Labour, the Government at the very least should avoid the circumstance in which so many public sector workers have labour contracts which come to renegotiation at approximately the same time. The Government in recent months has had to deal with nurses, doctors, teachers and now policemen.

Of course, it would have been encouraged or emboldened to take a more hard-line position even by the fact that most of the other public sector groups have already signed a new contract - whether as part of the MoU2 or as singular bargaining units. But quite apart from operating within very tight fiscal constraints, the Government would be hard-pressed to make a clear case for granting members of the Constabulary Force increases at rates over and above what the other groups have settled for.

The more pressing concern facing the Government in particular and the country as a whole is to see the economy growing at a rate that would make an MoU3 and an MoU4 unnecessary. The heavy debt burden and the underper-formance of key sectors of the economy do not suggest that this a likely prospect anytime soon.

In the instant case of the negotiations with the Police Federation, the Government could resort to private arbitration as it did in 1992.

In the cut and thrust of wage negotiations, it is expected that hard-line positions will be taken - at least in the initial stages. It is imperative, however, that the parties return to the bargaining table without the grandstanding that does not serve the national interest any good either in the short term or the long run.