ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC – The Grenada government is proposing new negotiating arrangements for senior public servants after indicating that it believes that it is a conflict of interest for those public servants to benefit from salary negotiations with trade unions in which they are also serving as members of the unions negotiating team.
“I think there is an imminent conflict of interest in that process because salary negotiations take place between the government representatives and the unions; there might be a back and forth for months in some cases,” Finance Minister Dennis Cornwall told a news conference.
Cornwall had during the presentation of the EC$1.66 billion One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) On Monday, the national budget to Parliament announced that an independent committee would be appointed to develop a compensation framework, including salaries and fringe benefits for Cabinet ministers and senior managers.
“Mr. Speaker, the current framework, wherein salaries of Cabinet ministers and permanent secretaries are tied to the outcome of union negotiations, is not good practice,” he added.
Cornwall told reporters that the Dickon Mitchell government, which came to office in June last year, believes the permanent secretaries and other senior public service officers who are part of the negotiating team of a union should not benefit from the collective bargaining agreement they have negotiated.
“If a permanent secretary, a senior officer in the ministry is part of the negotiating team that is mandated to ensure that the negotiations stay within a particular parameter, you cannot turn round at the end of the day and say if I give the public service, that is teachers and nurses and so on a particular increase that this increase be applied to the parliamentarians and heads of departments.
“I think that is wrong; an inherent conflict of interest exists. We are proposing that an independent commission be appointed to review the salaries of government ministers and senior public officers and increments as we go forward,” said Cornwall, a former senior public servant.
“So that what we are proposing is not to use the system whereby if the public servants get X amount, the ministers get an increase of X amount, that is something that we do not want to continue doing. It has happened in the past, but it’s wrong,” Cornwall said.
The Public Workers Union, the Grenada Union of Teachers, the Technical and Allied Workers Union, and the Police Welfare Association are the main bargaining agents for public officers. The government’s negotiating team typically comprises senior managers from the Department of Public Administration and the Ministry of Finance.
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