The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

PUBLIC Service Minister Brensil Rolle maintained yesterday the government has lived up to its promises to the Bahamas Public Services Union (BPSU) regarding the issue of increment pay outs after concerns were recently raised by the union.

Mr Rolle spoke after BPSU told reporters last month the union is at an impasse with the government after meetings between the two parties over their longstanding concerns proved unsuccessful.

The union has long called for salary increases, lump sum payments and salary reviews for members across the public sector.

The issues were even outlined in a proposal sent to the government by BPSU president, Kimsley Ferguson in 2019.

However, according to Mr Ferguson, many of the union’s outstanding financial matters have yet to be addressed. The union has taken issue with the fact that no increments are being added to workers’ base salaries.

“Increments are an entitlement,” Mr Ferguson told The Nassau Guardian in a recent interview. “And while the government may be paying retroactively, I think they could have come up with a better explanation as to why the increment is not being added to the base individuals’ salaries.

“If you’re not going to give the public servants an increase, at least give them what they are entitled to, which is their increment.”

Speaking on the issue yesterday, Mr Rolle insisted the government has lived up to its promises to BPSU, though he acknowledged that some issues are still being addressed.

“The government of The Bahamas promised the BPSU that we would deliver to them an increment effective July. We lived up to that commitment and because the union is in negotiations, I suspect they may be unhappy, but we lived up to our commitment to provide them for the increment that was lost and to pay them in lump sum,” he said.

“We paid public officers who qualified for increments, those that missed their increments in 2020 as well as those who missed their increments in 2021. Some of the individuals were at their salary bar so they did not anticipate or expect an increment and that’s as far as I know so far.

“We are in negotiations with the BPSU so I don’t want to commit or to disclose specifically as it relates to the bargaining unit but again, this is the season and sometimes in the unions they express their disgust to some degree of what is happening but I say to them the government is totally committed to improving the quality of life of all individuals, including those individuals in the public service and we demonstrated that during this pandemic where we paid every single public officer. They kept their vacations, notwithstanding the fact that we had a shutdown, so I understand their issues.”