Nelson

As a new session of Parliament opens on Thursday, there is little indication the five-year-long freeze on members' salary might end any time soon.

This is so despite proposed salary increases, languishing for months in the last Cabinet, awaiting approval.

Parliamentarians have not received a salary increase since October 2002, and Dwight Nelson, Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of Finance, says the Bruce Golding-led Cabinet has not yet given any attention to the issue of salary increase for parliamentarians. He adds that it is not considered a critical issue at this time.

not critical

"We have not looked at it," says Nelson, adding that while the matter is important, "it is not critical."

Echoing Nelson, Jacqueline Coke-Lloyd, executive director of the Jamaica Employers' Federation, does not recommend a salary increase for parliamentarians at this time.

"They will certainly need to understand their jobs, do the assessments, look at what is taking place in the country, before looking at increases in their wages or salaries," Coke-Lloyd tells The Sunday Gleaner.

"Anybody going into a new job, (salary increase) is not your priority. You took the job with the understanding that these are the deliverables and this is the salary. So, your first priority cannot be to look at your salary," Coke-Lloyd adds.

henry eager

However, veteran government Member of Parliament (MP), Mike Henry, who demanded a salary increase in the last Parliament, is eager to receive the new compensation package, which the last Parliament signed off on.

"I called for the salary (increase) to be paid when we were in Opposition and I still maintain that we must not hold back.

"I believe that I work hard enough to be paid even more than I am earning, but I took the job, so I take the salary that I am being paid," Henry states.

He says, while he would not raise the matter in Cabinet, he expects the Ministry of Finance to address the matter following the opening of Parliament this week.

Golding, during his contribution to the Budget Debate in the last session of Parliament, had said that the issue of remuneration for parliamentarians had remained a "very sensitive and volatile issue".

Opposition MP, Fitz Jackson, who led negotiations for public sector wages in the last Government, recalls that the recommendations to the previous Cabinet were for a 15 per cent increase in the first year (2004/2005), and a five per cent increase in year two (2006/2007).

recommendations

The recommendations, Jackson says, came from a parliamentary committee which was chaired by then Finance Minister, Omar Davies, and included representatives of both the People's National Party and Jamaica Labour Party MPs.

Jackson, the former State Minister for Finance, says the deliberations were influenced by the recommendations of a group, led by Oliver Clarke, managing director of the Gleaner Company. The recommendations include pegging salary increase for parliamentarians to that of public sector workers in light of the public sector memorandum of understanding.

"The report [from the Davies' committee] came to Parliament, the debate took place and Parliament approved it.

"However, Cabinet did not follow through on implementing the increases, and that, I think, was influenced in part by the stance of the then Opposition of not wanting the increases to be executed because some groups within the public sector never concluded [their negotiations], namely the police and the teachers," Jackson reports.

Should the Golding administration sign off on the recommendations for salary increase agreed on by the last Parliament, persons who served in the last Parliament would be entitled to arrears.

"The danger in not implementing (expeditiously) is that you will end up with a lot of arrears piling up," Jackson warns.

- D.L.