JCF. JTA. JCTU And Others Can Force New Elections If They Come Together, But Will They.…

Three per cent in the first year and an additional two per cent in the second

year of a new two-year deal.

That is the Government’s offer to pub­lic sec­tor workers.
Police offi­cers, teach­ers nurs­es and others.
Additionally the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Union Workers which rep­re­sents over 40,000 work­ers is hop­ing for meet­ings with Horace Dalley Minister with­out port­fo­lio in the finance Ministry to deal with a sim­i­lar wage offer from the Government.
The Governments offer is par­tic­u­lar­ly appalling to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers as it is sup­posed to end the Government imposed freeze on pub­lic sec­tor wages imposed by the International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile accord­ing to the Jamaica Observer National Security Minister Bunting is urg­ing the Federation to dis­con­tin­ue the appar­ent protest action that com­menced last night.
The Federation Chairman Raymond Wilson, has pushed back stat­ing that the exec­u­tive is oblig­ed to respect the man­date of the body to take action if their demands for a rea­son­able offer is not met.

Bunting’s declared , “This behav­ior is not appro­pri­ate for an essen­tial ser­vice; it expos­es the pub­lic to unnec­es­sary risk; and may dam­age the pro­fes­sion­al image of the JCF that has seen sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in recent years.”

Ironically Bunting has no chas­tise­ment for the inep­ti­tude of the Administration which con­tin­ues on a path which clear­ly is not work­ing for the Jamaican people.

The con­tin­u­ance of a pseu­do-social­ist eco­nom­ic agen­da, Genesised in con­tin­ued tax­a­tion of the over bloat­ed pub­lic sec­tor work­force, cou­pled with mas­sive bor­row­ing to fill the ever increas­ing gap between GDP and bud­getary require­ments is a pre­scrip­tion for mas­sive Inflation and what we have seen with the inevitable worth­less­ness of the Nation’s currency.

Jamaica’s con­tin­ued ties to the International Monetary Fund is inim­i­cal to growth and devel­op­ment. It should be clear to the most ardent sup­port­er of the Administration that five year wage freeze on pub­lic sec­tor wages accom­plished noth­ing to which the coun­try could pin it’s hat as worth­while for the pain felt by these most essen­tial workers.
As I have said repeat­ed­ly the International Monetary Fund is not in the busi­ness of nation-build­ing. Whatever for­mu­la the fund laid down for Jamaica was nev­er intend­ed to grow Jamaica’s econ­o­my which would result in a sub­se­quent wean­ing of the coun­try from the fund.
Fund poli­cies and loan require­ments are geared sole­ly to ensur­ing that con­di­tions are met so the fund can get it’s mon­ey back with mas­sive interest.

Jamaica has a deci­sion to make, since there is no marked gain from the 5 years of pain, we have to decide whether con­tin­u­ing with the fund is a fea­si­ble path for our country.
Clearly Government’s wage offer after the wage freeze, is nowhere near enough to com­pen­sate for infla­tion over those five years, much less to raise the stan­dard of liv­ing of the work­ing poor.
This means that pub­lic sec­tor work­ers are slip­ping deep­er and deep­er into pover­ty with each deval­u­a­tion of the currency.

Public sec­tor work­ers can halt this slide but it will not be accom­plished in Jamaica’s polit­i­cal­ly trib­al­ized envi­ron­ment, which ben­e­fits the Government.
A work stop­page of all pub­lic sec­tor work­ers at the same time would have a greater cumu­la­tive effect , rather that the rag-tag approach which they have tak­en over the decades.The Governing par­ty is acute­ly aware of the con­se­quences that would have on it’s abil­i­ty to stay in pow­er with­out call­ing fresh elections.
The peo­ple need new nation­al Elections now so they may chose their own path forward.
The Governing People’s National Party has done a mas­ter­ful job of plac­ing loy­al­ists in posi­tions of pow­er in lit­er­al­ly every area of nation­al life, effec­tive­ly chok­ing off a com­ing togeth­er of forces which would force it to come to the bar­gain­ing table with a respectable and a respect­ful offer for the coun­try’s pub­lic sec­tor workers.