Trade Union representatives of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, (from left) Vincent Morrison, National Workers Union; Dwight Nelson, Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, and Wayne Jones, JCTU, at a meeting on the police salary issue at Jamaica House on Wednesday, May 18, 2005. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
THE UNIVERSITY of the West Indies (UWI) has added its voice to the ongoing debate over the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). A forum was held at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) last month, to discuss issues surrounding the agreement between the Govern-ment and public sector workers.
In his presentation, Wayne Jones, vice-president of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions and president of the Jamaica Civil Service Association , defended the MoU and highlighted its achievements in 2004.
He was however quick to correct the misconception that the MoU was only about saving jobs. He noted that although some 15,000 jobs were saved, other important gains included the appointment of 65 per cent of temporary staff, increased training opportunities and improved industrial relations within the public sector.
COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT
Professor Neville Duncan, a public policy expert, said that the current Jamaican Memorandums represent a basic collective labour agreement between employers and employees where the employer in facing severe financial constraints has asked the employees to hold strain. The employees on the other hand agreed to do so on condition that jobs are saved. Unless productivity improvements are included in the equation, Professor Duncan said the agreement will be no more than a spiral of events.
He said that Jamaica should seek to adopt the Barbados model, as the model has seen critical research being done on the major sectors of that economy to reveal the conditions for productivity to be improved in both the short and medium term.
"The use of empirical data to inform the decision-making process has served the Barbados model well. It elevated the activities from trial and error to the use of concrete data that pointed the direction in which to proceed in the national interest," he said.
"No such studies are being done in Jamaica as part of the MoU process. However, the reluctance of sections of the public sector workforce to sign on the current agreement, in spite of the promised considerable increase in emoluments, demonstrates clearly that productivity is not only about wages and salaries," he said.
