THE EDITOR, Sir:

Your feature 'Letter of the Day' of May 3, made reference to parliamentary salary increases amidst a memorandum of understanding (MoU)wage freeze. The writer stated: "Thereafter, a wage freeze was introduced via a MoU in the midst of which parliamentarians took/got a 103 per cent salary increase."

On the contrary, parliamentarians have not received an increase in their salaries since April 2002 (five years ago). Indeed, the salaries for parliamentarians were frozen one year prior to the first MoU. Effective April 1, 2006, increases averaging 20 per cent have been agreed to in the public sector, however, the salaries for parliamentarians remain frozen.

It's against this background that senior Jamaica Labour Party MPs led a demand in Parliament a few weeks ago for parliamentarians to begin receiving the weighted average increase granted to the public sector since April 2006.

The thrust of the Jamaica Labour Party MPs' argument is that the incremental increases now, similar to other public sector workers, will avoid having to make accumulated one-time adjustments later.

This is the very circumstance that arose in 1993 where parliamentarians' salaries had not been increased since 1988, whilst the salaries in the Civil Service had been increasing every year. The increases that were then applied to the parliamentarians in 1993 represented adjustments covering the many years when no increase had been granted to them.

The records, not opinions, will also confirm that when ANY group of public sector worker salary increases are examined over the period 1989 to present, they are in excess of over 150 per cent.

I am, etc.,

FITZ A. JACKSON M.P.

Ministry of Finance and Planning