And a $100 monthly increase to salaries effective January 2004.
Unionists representing teachers, police and prison officers and staff, nurses and other civil servants made a verbal agreement last week.
The initial contract, drawn-up in 1999, was breached when the Government announced in Parliament in June that it could not pay civil servants in July but rather on Dec. 31, based on advice from the International Monetary Fund. Four months of stalled negotiations and ultimatums have been the result.
With regard to their most recent proposal, union heads, led by Bahamas Union of Teachers negotiator Kinglsey Black, have demanded that they be paid partial arrears this month and the remainder in December.
After signing the contract, Mr. Black said with a wide grin of relief, “Some people in the community had this view that the only thing we were interested in was flexing our muscles and engaging in a test of wills, and to go down Bay Street, carry on bad and break up the town. That is so far fetched.”
He stressed that while other unions might use such tactics for their cause, in the current negotiations, unionists were only acting in their members’ best interests. And, if it meant “using the tools of the trade” then they have worked in their favour.
Nonetheless, Mr. Black was pleased that union members had made an agreement without any unpleasant “militant action.”
In addition to salary arrears, the agreement seeks to appoint outstanding promotions on or before Oct. 28 in the Royal Bahamas Police and Defence Force and the Prison Staff.
The contract reads: “That the Government shall take steps to ensure that the requisite pay for all completed promotions referred to in the aforementioned paragraph (including any back pay relating to such promotions) shall be paid on the 26th day of November, 2003.”
As with Family Island administrators and school administrators, “the Government will endeavour to pay any back pay to regularise the anomalies on the 28th of November, 2003 or as soon thereafter as reasonably practicable,” reads the contract.
Civil servants are now legally prohibited from staging any industrial action based on the clauses agreed to in the contract.
Responding to “attackers,” who may think unionists did not achieve anything much, Mr. Black noted that the Government had put negotiations at the top of their agenda when initially they were scheduled to begin sometime next year.
He said: “When we had the final meeting with the Prime Minister (Perry Christie), there was no guarantee that anything that we expected in December would take place. This signing of the agreement today…. gives that guarantee, that back payments would be paid in full…. When we didn’t have an agreement at all, now we have one, signed, sealed and only now to be delivered.”
However, not all parties were satisfied with some clauses in the agreement. John Pinder, Bahamas Public Service Union president, said his members were still hoping to receive their salary increases this month, rather than December.
“Our biggest concern was concluding the matter at the Airport Authority, but the minister has assured us faithfully that we would meet on that next week, so that come November we would have some clarity on that. In addition to that, we were looking to get some payments in October, but looking at the financial painting that has been painted, we accept that this is the best that we can do,” Mr. Pinder said.
During negotiations, Minister Mitchell and Mr. Christie repeatedly informed unionists that the only way they could receive salary increases was to raise taxes.
And, at the contract signing, Mr. Mitchell revealed that about $1 million would be acquired to include in promotion packages, and another $12 million in partial payments.
Asked how the Government would acquire the funds, which is in total $24 million during a 12-month period, Mr. Mitchell explained that Mr. Christie, as Minister of Finance, would examine several suggestions.
Outlining several “balancing factors” that can protect the country’s economy as well as pay civil servants, Mr. Mitchell noted that there might be a potential costly “disruption” in the economy.
It was for this reason that he advocated “harmony” in the workplace as a result of the negotiations. And, he added, the negotiations should be a model for the private sector which ought to appreciate the “value of determining a commonality of interest in settling labour relation issues.”
By Khashan Poitier, The Nassau Guardian
