When will “salary adjustments” kick in?

By Aaron Humes: As Government and the Joint Unions resume negotiations today, Thursday, public officers and teachers are expected, with the upcoming paycheque , to start feeling the sting of 10 percent of their salaries cut and increments frozen for the foreseeable future.

Christopher Coye, Minister of State, Ministry of Finance told reporters this week, “The salary adjustment for this fiscal year is part of that fiscal recovery plan and its part of getting to a level of fiscal balance over a period of 3 fiscal years. One year doesn’t do the job. We are in such a deeper hole that it will take a while to dig ourselves out.”

And in response to a question of whether the cuts are now irreversible after having been written into the 2021-2022 General Revenue and Appropriation Act, Coye said simply, “The Budget has been passed.”

The Joint Unions have threatened legal action on determining the constitutionality of Section 106(3)(c) of the Constitution which sets the Minister’s authority, with consultation, to recommend adjustments in salaries for the Public Service.

Coye said that the Attorney General’s Ministry is looking at legal considerations relating to that provision, while the Ministry of Finance is attending to the operational constraints while pay scales are used to determine salary by position, the cut affects public officers making more than $12,000 a year.

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