I write in response to a letter published on April 12, entitled, 'Unreasonable public servants'. Like the concerned civil servant, I do not trust trade unions, but unlike the writer I also do not trust the persons who sit in the august houses of Parliament.
I have learned that these persons, despite their quest to serve, will also do that which is politically expedient. This is what our venerable 'Driver' has done in his symbolic gesture. Those public servants who stick out for the increase that is due to them will be and have been labelled as heartless and cruel and certainly unpatriotic.
I have been a public servant for eight years and if the concerned civil servant from St Mary wants to label me as unreasonable, I will gladly accept the title and wear it proudly. Your concern for the state of the nation is duly noted and I can assure you that concern is shared by every teacher and nurse in Jamaica. However, let us look at the situation objectively.
Salary negotiations
Every other civil servant has received their 15 per cent of the 22 per cent increase due to them as a result of the 2008/2010 salary negotiations. Nurses have yet to receive an increase and teachers have received a 15 per cent increase for April, May, June, and July of 2008 and for January, February and March of 2009.
Your argument
Is your argument then that nurses are unreasonable in requesting what you have already received and that teachers should do without their 15 per cent increase for August, September, October, and November of 2008? What makes you more deserving of a 15 per cent increase than teachers and nurses?
No teacher or nurse is unaware of or insensitive to the current economic crisis that the country - and by extension the world - is now facing. Because of this awareness, no teacher or nurse is demanding the seven per cent which all civil servants will, of necessity, postpone. If you will listen carefully to our argument, we are only asking for equity with the other reasonable civil servants. You have got all of your 15 per cent, we need ours.
I am, etc.,
UNREASONABLE PUBLIC SERVANT
Jericho District
Linstead P.O.
St Catherine