With further civil service strikes scheduled for Tuesday, Terry Renouf, chair of JCSA Prospect, has once again called on the States Employment Board to return to the negotiating table.
He warned that further strikes were inevitable unless the States and the unions could reach an agreement to end the long-running pay dispute as the ‘appetite for action is still there’ among staff. He added that the longer the dispute carried on, the more difficult an agreement would be, as the strength of feeling among public-sector staff would continue to grow.
It comes as Jersey’s teachers look set to launch their own strikes after members of the National Education Union voted in favour of action – which could take place before the end of the month.
Mr Renouf said that teaching assistants and Customs officers had gathered at the Harbour at lunchtime to ‘show solidarity’ and
said the stories of several teaching assistants – some of whom are on income support despite being in employment – had left him ‘very emotional’.
‘There is no justice in this at all,’ he said. ‘These people turn up day after day, they care about what they do but they are not being respected by the employer.’
This morning, the rest of the civil service will be walking out and picketing near their offices before meeting in the Royal Square at lunchtime – as States Members sit for the first meeting of the new year.
The following services were also due to be affected on Tuesday:
- Magistrate’s Court.
- Viscounts’ front desk.
- Driver and Vehicle Standards.
- Environmental Protection Team and Environmental Health.
- In HCS, Pathology will provide emergency cover only; in Clinical Investigations, Physiotherapy, Orthopaedic and X-Ray out-patient sessions originally booked for today have been rescheduled.
The States have released a table of civil-service pay grades to ‘aid transparency and understanding’ of the pay rates for civil servants. In a media release, a States spokesperson said the figures showed that the majority of employees were paid at the top of their pay scale and added that pension contributions were around 16 per cent of their basic salary.
A recent freedom of information request revealed that more than £3.3 million has been spent on interim senior appointments by the States in one 13-month period.
Mr Renouf said the amount spent on interim directors could instead have been spent on ‘paying staff a decent wage’ and could hamper goodwill in negotiations.
He said: ‘That money was never budgeted for in the MTFP but we know that money has had to come from somewhere.
‘The MTFP had enough money put aside to give every member of staff a cost of living rise for 2018 and 2019 and still have some left over.
‘That money is being spirited off and used elsewhere for a purpose which was not agreed in the MTFP. It undermines any goodwill that might have been there.’
He added that Prospect were willing to return to negotiations but had not had any contact from the States.
‘There has to be a resolution,’ he said. ‘But it is going to need both sides to sit down, talk and come to an agreement.
‘It is no good them sitting there thinking they can deliver their services if they haven’t got the staff to do so.’
Prospect general secretary Mike Clancy is due to meet Chief Minister John Le Fondré on Tuesday afternoon.
