The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

MINISTER of National Insurance and the Public Service Brensil Rolle said a protest by some National Insurance Board workers on Monday about late salary payments was "not justified", because the matter was resolved that morning.

Asked about issues at NIB before yesterday's Cabinet meeting at the Churchill Building, Mr Rolle said: "The first issue was a letter was issued to some employees of NIB to deal with unexplained absence. Our position is very clear. NIB is a corporate organisation. If persons have absences that are unexplained they must be given an opportunity to explain their absences.

"(But) to me it is patently unfair to make these unexplained absences retroactive to 2016. If you were working in 2016 at some point your work habit should [have been] evaluated for that year and you should not be able to go back to 2016 and say this is what happened two years ago, now we are going to take action against you now. It's unfortunate [but] personally unacceptable to me.

"I had a meeting with the acting director and the human resource manager and as a result they had a meeting with the union and my understanding is the union has agreed with the director to take action and that the process of what's going to take place between now and February of next year is going to be discussed."

Regarding the late salaries, Mr Rolle said: "Individuals received a notice on Friday that their salary payments would be late. That matter was resolved to the best of my understanding Monday morning and it is unfortunate that individuals had to be called out knowing full well the matter would be addressed and that is what is unfortunate to me.

"I tried to reach out to the union at every turn to make sure that they know where we are and I want them to respect our position as we respect their position. So I think the 45-minute demonstration yesterday (Monday) was not justified in my view."

President of the Union of Public Officers Marvin Duncombe told ZNS News on Monday that human resources sent out letters stating employees would be cut for December. The letters also asked the workers to present letters of unexcused absences.

"We have submitted these unexcused absences for 2016, we are not going to submit them once again. They seem as if they don't know how to do their job and they want us to do their job for them," he said.

He said employees are also upset some workers were not paid their salaries on time this month.

"In a $1.7bn operation, you can't pay salaries? For the first time in history, our members have not been paid and today they won't be paid until after 5 today [Monday]," Mr Duncombe said. "This is unacceptable, we are not taking it and we are here to take a stand."

He also said: "I'm calling on the leaders of the nation to fix this NIB. NIB is helpful to too many people around this country for the people, the workers to be suffering in the way that they are suffering."

According to ZNS News, Minister of Public Service and National Insurance Brensil Rolle said the delay in staff salaries was due to a glitch at FirstCaribbean International Bank.