NWC workers on strike

 

Workers at the National Water Commission (NWC) including management personnel, are now on strike.

 

As s result, water lock offs are expected to affect the entire island.

 

The workers are protesting against the government's compensation review programme proposals.

 

Helene Davis Whyte, President of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, told Radio Jamaica News that the workers decided to go on strike out of frustration, "with regard to a reclassification exercise that was agreed in 2008 and is yet to be implemented."

 

The workers had initially to await the completion of a "restructuring exercise" in the NWC as a prelude to the reclassification of jobs taking effect. 

 

That reclassification took ten years, "and up to now, no approval can be given by the Ministry of Finance for a consultant to be hired to do the reclassification."

 

"The straw that broke the camel's back," she said, was news that the Compensation Review plan does not include NWC workers, "so they are really absolutely nowhere in relation to a determination as to the relative worth of their jobs, and so they ahve decided that enough is enough, and they need to get some answers."