‘Fed up!’

Members of the public service have had enough of the unfair treatment.

 

This was revealed by General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW), Roslyn Smith. Following the meeting that was held at the NUPW headquarters yesterday, Smith told the media that persons are fed up and frustrated with the way they are being treated. She said that the frustration of the room was as if 10 000 persons were in the meeting.

 

“There’s a thread that goes right through the public service where persons have been disadvantaged for so long that even if we had one member, they would bring the feelings of all the members in the public sector,” she said.

 

President of the NUPW, Akanni McDowall, revealed that the meeting that was held yesterday was aimed at discussing the need to increase the salaries of the public servants. He revealed that following the increase of the ministers’ salaries, they believed that the salaries of the public servants should have been increased as well.

 

McDowall said that they were able to come up with a plan of action where members gave them the go-ahead to take industrial action if they were not able to complete salary negotiations. Acknowledging that they were a responsible union that followed protocol, he mentioned that they had decided to “give Government one more opportunity to come back to the table to discuss salary negotiations”. 

 

However, McDowall divulged that once that process has been followed, both internally and externally, the union will do whatever is necessary to make sure that they receive salary increases. He also noted that they will ask whatever is reasonable of the Government to give.

 

McDowall went on to express that Government would have tried an approach where they sought to collect income from taxes. However, he believes that they should have gone another direction, one where by giving public servants an increase, it would stimulate the economy through their spending power.