The Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) has reacted with surprise at news that the Government has frozen public-sector salaries for this fiscal year.

"The JCTU has not signed off with the Government on any wage freeze for public-sector workers. In fact, we are in the middle of discussions with the Ministry of Finance and are awaiting information based on certain matters raised by us at the last meeting," Danny Roberts, vice-president of the JCTU, said yesterday.

Roberts was responding to an announcement on Sunday from Prime Minister Bruce Golding that public-sector workers would not receive the scheduled seven per cent wage increase this month.

"We have, therefore, had to freeze wages at the levels which obtained on March 31 and we have had to ask public-sector workers to forego the increases due this year. The other option would be to lay off thousands of workers at a time when alternative employment is hard to find.

"There are some categories of workers, such as nurses, that did not benefit from the increases granted last year and we will have to find some accommodation for them, but the rest of us will have to hold strain," Golding said in an address to the nation.

But Roberts said a wage freeze was just one of the measures being considered by the unions and the finance ministry in the discussions which started weeks ago.

"A suspension of the second-year wage increase rather than a total freeze on wages is one of the considerations," Roberts said.