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NewsDay

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‘Civil servants salary negotiations will not yield results’

News
SALARY negotiations between government and civil servants unions will not yield any results due to the reluctance by the employer to increase salaries to the Poverty Datum Line levels of $540, government workers said yesterday.

SALARY negotiations between government and civil servants unions will not yield any results due to the reluctance by the employer to increase salaries to the Poverty Datum Line levels of $540, government workers said yesterday.

FELUNA NLEYA,STAFF REPORTER

The Government workers said most of them were already psyched up for yet another disappointment.

In separate interviews with NewsDay, some civil servants said they wanted government to credit them with the $79 it had proposed while negotiations proceeded.

This comes as the two parties are today set to meet for a third meeting after failing to agree on the package to offer civil servants due to the divergent views.

A teacher at Prince Edward High School said he had learnt from the past that negotiations with government hardly yielded positive results.

“It’s just a formality that our representatives meet government in the name of negotiating, but to expect anything more than the $79 tabled by government is just a fallacy,” he said.

Another government employee also said: “I don’t think tomorrow’s (today) meeting will yield anything better than what they have already offered.

“We have just psyched our minds that we will be getting $79 there is nothing we can do. Although it is just too little for us to call it an increment that is what we are now expecting. We are only surviving by God’s grace. The good thing is that I do not pay any rentals because I stay at my parents’ home, but as for the other bills such as council and Zesa I ignore because I cannot afford to pay them and be able to feed my family and take children to school.”

Another civil servant said “What the $79 increase will do is it will just increase tax. We will get more money yes, but you will get into another tax bracket and more money is taken up by taxes and leave you with less.

“These negotiations will not bring out anything promising. It’s been long overdue and taking long to give us an increment so we will just move on with our lives.”

Government and the Apex council, the umbrella body of civil servants unions, met twice last week, but ended in a deadlock over the salary increment level.