CMC – Prime Minister Gaston Browne Monday warned of possible retrenchment in the public service if trade unions continue to demand unrealistic higher wages for workers in Antigua and Barbuda.
Addressing a Labour Day rally there to mark the international day of workers, Browne said workers can be assured that his administration, which in 2018 gave a five per cent increase to workers “and we committed to do more than five per cent.
“We are about to conclude those negotiations and I am absolutely sure that at the end of the day when we would have resolved the issues…that we would be able to maintain the positive parity for workers.”
He said this was being done “amid very difficult circumstances” brought on by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“So let us understand that we must engage constructively. We are not seeking to resist increases,” he reiterated.
Browne said he was disappointed at the decision of some teachers to embark upon industrial action recently affecting schools for at least two weeks even though “all of the demands you have made, we have satisfied those demands.
We did not argue that we did not wish to meet the demands and yet still many of them took the destructive action of striking for almost two weeks, literally depriving our students of two weeks of contact time.
“I say to the workers of this country that that type of behaviour is self-defeating. There is no value in fighting a government that is cooperating with you,” Browne said, adding that he hopes when the other unions come forward to negotiate “they will have a more constructive approach and to be reasonable with their demands to make sure that we can give increases”.
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