Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter
The Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) yesterday received a full response on salary and fringe benefits for the island's more than 20,000 teachers, but is still dissatisfied with the offer.
JTA President Ruel Reid said the Ministry of Finance and Planning has responded to all the items of the 22 benefit claims and has proposed a salary increase which ranges from 14 per cent to 22 per cent in the first year and five per cent to eight per cent in the second year.
Mr. Reid told The Gleaner yesterday that there were some anomalies in the salary scale which are to be corrected. He declined, however, to comment on the anomalies, noting that the JTA's salary committee will be meeting to review the offer and then request another meeting with the Finance Ministry for further negotiation.
CONSTRAINED BY MOU
Teachers were among some 88,000 public sector workers who were constrained by a wage freeze, among other things, following the signing of a two-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Government and the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) in 2004. The MoU ended in March.
A second MoU was signed last week between the Government and the JCTU, but the JTA did not sign, arguing that it was waiting on an acceptable salary offer from the Government.
Some of the 22 fringe benefits claims that have been accepted by the Ministry of Finance include:
Concession for teachers of children at secondary schools to pay half of tuition fees.
In addition to the $500 million revolving loan fund, the Finance Ministry has agreed to a $5 million professional development fund for teachers.
Insurance for teachers who die in the line of duty has moved from $4 million to $4.5 million.
"We feel that we can reach an agreement on a number of benefit offers but the two which are going to pose a major problem are the graduate scale for teachers and the claim for Government to pay half the tuition fee for teachers whose children are enrolled at tertiary institutions (which has not been accepted by the Finance Ministry)".
NURSES MEETING
Meanwhile, the Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) met with the Finance Ministry yesterday to discuss issues affecting the nursing sector.
NAJ President Edith Allwood-Anderson told The Gleaner yesterday that the Finance Ministry would set a date by this week for them to begin negotiations.
