For the past couple months, union activities have dominated the news. Yesterday made 11 school days that the BNTU has been on strike, which means that they have surpassed their previous record set back in 2016. And the PSU is following behind, with one week of strike action so far.
The next meeting between the joint unions and the government is scheduled for Thursday, and is highly anticipated since the GOB is reportedly offering them promissory notes as compensation for the 10% cut which WILL be reflected in the upcoming payday.
Or at least, the unions claim the government has put that proposal on the table. We say this because, as you heard last night, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Christopher Coye, did not have a clue about the promissory notes. He stated that it would be contrary to the government's goal to get out of debt.
But the unions were pretty clear on Friday when they told us about the proposal. So, who's telling the truth?
Well, according to PSU president, Gerald Henry, it seems the Cabinet colleagues that form the budget consultation team haven't exactly been forthcoming with each other.
Gerald Henry, President, PSU
"I will only go as far as to say that he was not in that meeting, in that last meeting that we had, and it suggests to me that perhaps his colleagues did not fully tell him everything that was discussed and leave it at that for now. But there were other details in addition to simply just the promissory note itself as he stated."
"The promissory note and then there's also the land credit that was presented to us as well, I believe that those two would have still be there but as you know the land credit did not succeed with our membership, I believe that the compensation from the promissory note itself, I believe that the promissory note will be a difficult sell because it won't be redeemable until three years from now so we will be without that money for the next three years."
Henry says he has yet to meet with their membership to discuss the promissory notes but hopes to do so in the next couple days.
