Despite the failure to join of several bargaining groups, including the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), National Workers' Union and the Nurses' Association of Jamaica, the third public sector Memorandum of Understanding (MOU3) was signed yesterday at Jamaica House.

The agreement for the 2008-2010 contract period will see public sector workers receiving a 15 per cent increase in year one and seven per cent in the second year.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding hailed the signing of the MOU3.

Social partnership

"This agreement is important because it provides not just a framework that will provide compensation packages for public sector workers," said Golding.

He noted that it was also important because it brought order and discipline to industrial relations in the sector.

Golding said he had written to the opposition leader, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) seeking a social partnership.

Senator Dwight Nelson, minister with responsibility for the public service, commended the negotiating team led by Wayne Jones, acting president of the JCTU, for the agreement which was reached between the Government and the unions.

"We are here this morning due to a large extent to their resolute position that the MOU3 must be signed," said Nelson.

In his remarks, Finance Minister Audley Shaw said the MOU3 was signed at a time of unprecedented challenges at home and abroad.

A time for genuine partnership

"It is a time when the need for reciprocity, the time for true and genuine partnership is all that much more emphasised," said Shaw.

Jones told the gathering that MOU3 was a process through which worker-management relationship would improve.

MOU3 is an agreement between Government and trade unions representing public sector workers to keep wage increases at a minimum.

The second public sector MOU expired on March 31. The JTA had indicated earlier that it would not sign MOU3, as its members had not benefitted from the last two.

Efforts to contact the groups that did not sign were unsuccessful.