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A deficit of credibility
published: Saturday | September 2, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
We entirely agree that Mrs Edith Allwood-Anderson has a credibility problem when it comes to advising public sector groups to settle wage contracts with the Government within the ambit of the pact between the administration and the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU).
So we understand that Dr. Myrton Smith, the president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA), would tell Mrs. Allwood-Anderson to butt out of his organisation's wage negotiations with the Government. Even if they haven't spoken out in the same fashion we expect that the heads of the Police Federation and the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA) would feel the same way about Mrs. Allwood-Anderson's coaxing.
We here make no judgement on the merits of the pay demands of the doctors and the teachers, but it is important to place Mrs. Allwood-Anderson in the context of the anger she has elicited from the doctors.
Edith Allwood-Anderson is the president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ), which, until recently, was a constituent part of the umbrella body of the trade unions. When the JUTC signed a second Memorandum of Understanding (MoU2) with the Government that placed a 20 per cent cap on the wage fund and limited the salary increases to be received by various categories of public sector employees, Mrs. Allwood-Anderson pulled the NAJ out of the JCTU. The umbrella trade union organisation, she held, had not negotiated with the interest of nurses in mind.
Earlier this week, after long, a mostly bad-tempered wrangle with the Government, Mrs. Allwood-Anderson signed an agreement which will give nurses hikes of 19 per cent in the first year and five per cent in the second on basic pay. There are other benefits whose value has not been clearly enunciated so that interested persons can come to a clear determination on whether they fall within the ambit of MoU2.
But at the signing, the NAJ president argued that since nurses were supposedly the worst off of public sector employees, and had settled with the Government, other groups should follow suit, keeping within the framework of the MoU.
She should have been aware that her suggestion, even if it was offered tongue-in-cheek, which it does not appear to have been, would have elicited derision. At best, it appears selfish and politically self-serving.
But there is a more substantial observation to be made about the MOU and its existence. It ought not to exist. This wage pact is in place because trade unions wished to save 15,000 public sector jobs and the Government lacked the courage to do what is right and best for the economy. The administration knows that the large public sector, with its growing wage demand, is unsustainable, helping to balloon the public sector deficit. But instead of shedding jobs to achieve an efficient public sector deficit, there is this compromise of capping wages.
In effect, what the Government and the trade unions have conspired to do is redistribute poverty rather than create wealth. By trimming the public sector we would be able to pay those who remain better, and therefore be in a position to attract better talent. In that regard, we would likely have a more produtive public sector contributing to economic efficiency.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY RELECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.</DIV>
published: Saturday | September 2, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
We entirely agree that Mrs Edith Allwood-Anderson has a credibility problem when it comes to advising public sector groups to settle wage contracts with the Government within the ambit of the pact between the administration and the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU).
So we understand that Dr. Myrton Smith, the president of the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA), would tell Mrs. Allwood-Anderson to butt out of his organisation's wage negotiations with the Government. Even if they haven't spoken out in the same fashion we expect that the heads of the Police Federation and the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA) would feel the same way about Mrs. Allwood-Anderson's coaxing.
We here make no judgement on the merits of the pay demands of the doctors and the teachers, but it is important to place Mrs. Allwood-Anderson in the context of the anger she has elicited from the doctors.
Edith Allwood-Anderson is the president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ), which, until recently, was a constituent part of the umbrella body of the trade unions. When the JUTC signed a second Memorandum of Understanding (MoU2) with the Government that placed a 20 per cent cap on the wage fund and limited the salary increases to be received by various categories of public sector employees, Mrs. Allwood-Anderson pulled the NAJ out of the JCTU. The umbrella trade union organisation, she held, had not negotiated with the interest of nurses in mind.
Earlier this week, after long, a mostly bad-tempered wrangle with the Government, Mrs. Allwood-Anderson signed an agreement which will give nurses hikes of 19 per cent in the first year and five per cent in the second on basic pay. There are other benefits whose value has not been clearly enunciated so that interested persons can come to a clear determination on whether they fall within the ambit of MoU2.
But at the signing, the NAJ president argued that since nurses were supposedly the worst off of public sector employees, and had settled with the Government, other groups should follow suit, keeping within the framework of the MoU.
She should have been aware that her suggestion, even if it was offered tongue-in-cheek, which it does not appear to have been, would have elicited derision. At best, it appears selfish and politically self-serving.
But there is a more substantial observation to be made about the MOU and its existence. It ought not to exist. This wage pact is in place because trade unions wished to save 15,000 public sector jobs and the Government lacked the courage to do what is right and best for the economy. The administration knows that the large public sector, with its growing wage demand, is unsustainable, helping to balloon the public sector deficit. But instead of shedding jobs to achieve an efficient public sector deficit, there is this compromise of capping wages.
In effect, what the Government and the trade unions have conspired to do is redistribute poverty rather than create wealth. By trimming the public sector we would be able to pay those who remain better, and therefore be in a position to attract better talent. In that regard, we would likely have a more produtive public sector contributing to economic efficiency.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY RELECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.</DIV>
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