ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC—The Public Workers Union (PWU) has told the Grenada government that its members will not accept a four percent salary increase under the new collective agreement that will come into effect on January 1 next year.
The current collective agreement, which went into effect on January 1, 2023, expires on December 31 this year. It is not known if the PWU and other public sector unions have submitted new proposals to the government for consideration.
Over the past negotiating cycles, the government has paid unionized public sector employees an average four percent increase per annum.
But PWU president Daisy Hazzard has warned that the union will not accept a percent increase for its members.
“In 2025, we will not beg for bread. As your president, I don’t have to brawl with the government in the streets for a just and fair increase. I am letting it known. Today, we are drawing a line in the sand. The FRA is not our busy; don’t tell us about it,” said Hazzard, who assumed the union’s leadership in March this year and is currently the country’s only female trade union leader.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was repealed and replaced with the Fiscal Resilience Act (FRA) in 2023, mandates that the government cap salaries and wages at a certain percentage of the total budget.
Over the years, this has allowed the government to use this legal measure to limit the increases agreed to during negotiations. Before 2023, it was nine percent, and after 2023, it was increased to 13 percent.
Addressing Labour Day celebrations on Thursday, Hazzard said that the PWU’s negotiating team would not accept the four percent increase in the new agreement.
“The Fiscal Responsibility Act that the government loves to push down our throats and for decades only four percent, what they find four percent mark on somebody face, what do they believe that four percent is public servants name, we are not taking four percent in 2025 for 2026 and 2027,” she said.
“So you can come with your FRA, you can and tell us what the IMF says, we hear you, but what we will say to you is this, find a name to call it, find a way to disguise it, you disguise so many other things, and you waste government money as if a piggy bank break for every other thing that you want to do but when it comes to paying workers you shoving down the FRA cap in our throat,” she told workers and dignitaries at the celebrations.
Meanwhile, the Grenada Trades Union Council (GTUC) president, Andre Lewis, is warning that the current industrial relations climate is under pressure with “clouds starting to feel heavier with the possible threat of bad weather.”
Lewis said that bad weather could be avoided if the government did not allow itself to be influenced by those anti-union, anti-worker elements that were forever bent on fighting and seeking to exploit the working class.
“This government continues to exploit the workers by violating section 29 subsection 5 of the Employment Act,” said Lewis, who represents the Labour Movement in the Upper House of Parliament.
“The law is clear; why are we continuing to violate the law,” said Lewis, reminding the Dickon Mitchell government that on the campaign trail for the 2022 general election, it had promised to make all public sector employees permanent or established government workers.
Pointing out some of the trade unions’ concerns, Lewis said that the government’s decision to hire known anti-worker personnel to serve on the boards of statutory bodies is not encouraging.
“Government’s recruitment of anti-worker personnel from the private sector to serve on statutory bodies and to lead negotiations against workers. The private sector leaders fighting the private sector unions in the major companies in Grenada and the leading corporate law firm are now in bed with the government.
“The government brought them in, and they are questioning some of our union leaders’ certificates and right to represent workers,” Lewis said in the presence of Labour Minister Claudette Joseph and a delegation from the Cuban Embassy.
“This is the fact, and it’s the truth…the attempt is similar to what Elon Musk has done in the United States where Donald Trump has brought in this private sector man to try and cripple the movement, and they are just dismissing workers,” he said.
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