YESTERDAY'S EMERGENCY meeting of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) monitoring committee was cancelled.
A statement from State Minister in the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Fitz Jackson, said the partners will instead convene at a meeting previously scheduled for next Tuesday.
The Finance Ministry had called the emergency meeting following an announcement by the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) on Monday that it was withdrawing from the 14-month- old wage restraint agreement between government and public sector employee unions.
BITU senior vice-president, Senator Dwight Nelson, said the union's action was as a result of Air Jamaica management making redundant 180 pilots following the redundancy of 40, more than a month a ago. On Monday, Nelson called on other member unions of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions to also abandon the MoU.
Yesterday's meeting, called by the Finance Ministry, was to repair any breach done to the labour pact. But, with the subsequent return of the disputing parties to conciliatory talks at the Ministry of Labour yesterday, the immediate threat of the breaking of the MoU seemed to have receded.
