Images of crowds of police officers demonstrating in front of the supreme court building for wages they earned and deserve speaks volumes about the importance the administration places on the nation’s security.
What justification could there be for an employer to refuse to pay wages earned to its employees?
A Government that refuses to pay for work done is operating outside the law, plain and simple. The Government has no legitimacy to govern if it refuses to pay wages owed to any category of its workers.……it is that simple.
This is not a political statement; the governing administration is teetering dangerously close to becoming an illegal and dictatorial government.
Wanting to have a better understanding of the government’s intransigence in refusing to pay this vital category of workers, I reached out to sources who advised me that the government agreed to certain conditionalities from as far back as 2008, the source confirmed that this matter is still being litigated and that the Government has still not paid what is owed to the officers.
We reached out to the Ministry Of National Security for some clarification, but no one would speak to us because the matter is before the courts. Below is a single page of the agreement that the government reached with the rank and file of the JCF that is at the center of the dispute.
We must first acknowledge that the government has many categories of workers to deal with on salaries and benefits. It is also important to process those facts against the backdrop of a less than infinite pool of resources to tackle these demands.
With that said, the continuation of a policy by the two political parties to diss the police as a strategy should be lost on no one. It must be evaluated as part and parcel of the escalating crime pandemic facing the nation. It is endangering lives, including that of police officers.
The administration has made it abundantly clear that it has scant regard for the Jamaica Constabulary Force, even as it pays lips service to the ever-escalating violent crime crisis threatening to engulf the nation.
It is death by a thousand pricks; this administration has embarked on a process of a thousand instances of disrespect for the nation’s crime fighters; the nation is paying a very costly price for it.
Whose decision is it to hold monies owed to these workers? Is it the permanent secretary in the security Ministry? Is it the decision of the cabinet? Or is it the decision of one man.…the prime minister?
I am inclined to believe that this is a decision reached by a single individual who has demonstrated that he doesn’t care too much about the members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force outside of their usefulness to him as photo props.
This medium urges Prime Minister Andrew Holness to end this disgraceful act and advises the Prime Minister to order that the monies owed to the members of the Constabulary Force be made fully available to them at the earliest possible time…
Surely the Prime Minister cannot be so bone-headed that he is unaware of the harm he is doing to the country and Bustamante’s party that he inherited.
The last time the people turned against the JLP, it took 221⁄2 years for the party to see inside Jamaica House again. If Holness continues with these unwarranted and reckless actions, it may be a full half a century before the JLP is returned to office once booted; and it will be all on his head.
The only thing he has going for him now is that the PNP is a fragmented corrupt pro-crime-and-violence party that is bereft of both ideas & leadership.
But that could change soon.
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.