THE JAMAICA Public Service Company (JPS) will have to abide by the salary structure ordered by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal on August 29, 2003, for clerical and hourly-paid workers.
This follows the decision handed down on Friday by the Judicial Review Court that there was no error of law on the face of the award made by the tribunal.
The JPS had brought a motion seeking an order to quash the tribunal's award that "the salary structure that shall be implemented, consequent on the job evaluation and compensation review exercise, is one which conforms with and maintains the established compensation policy/philosophy agreed on by the parties in the 1990/1991 Heads of Agreement, based on a formula of the top five to 10 percentile of the benchmarked market."
The tribunal had ordered that the effective date of payment of the new rates should be January 1, 2001.
Lord Anthony Gifford, Q.C., who represented the National Workers Union and the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, which represent the workers, said Friday that the ruling made by Mr. Justice Donald McIntosh confirmed that the tribunal had the authority to determine disputes about salary structures.
The JPS and the unions had signed two heads of agreement for Trevor Hamilton and Associates to conduct a reclassification and evaluation exercise to be concluded by March 31, 2001. After the exercise was completed, KPMG Peat Marwick and Partners Management Consultants (KPMG) was contracted to develop related salary structures to complement the job reclassification and evaluation exercise.
BENCHMARK
KPMG confirmed that in terms of basic pay and allowances, JPS fell within the top four companies in the survey with all four bargaining units being compensated at or above market. In relation to specific benchmark jobs totalling 500 that were found to be below market, JPS had agreed to bring those employees up to the market minimum as established by the survey.
Despite several meetings in 2002, JPS and the unions were unable to reach an agreement on the implementation of the job reclassification and evaluation exercise. The dispute was referred by the minister to the tribunal, which made the award on August 29, 2003.
JPS took the issue to court contending that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to make the order . Mr. Justice McIntosh, in dismissing the motion, held that the court was firmly of the view that there was no error of law on the face of the award.
