But while this may not be in the public officers' favor, it's not only them who's feeling the brunt. Hyde, who had been a part of the budget consultation team, expressed compassion for the unions, saying any PUP member would, considering they were born out of trade unionism.
And while they await another battle in the courts, since that's where the BNTU is planning to take the fight, he hopes that they will be able to find a solution at the end of it.
Hon Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister
"Whenever we are pitted on a side that's opposed to the unions, that is never easy for us. If you listen to the speeches, the Honorable David L McKoy was a trade union leader in the 1950's. that's the root of the PUP. In fact the first elections in the 1950's were ran with the PUP coalition with the general workers union. So whenever we are in opposing sides with the unions, that's never a good thing, that's supposed to make any warm blooded PUP member uncomfortable. So it certainly made me uncomfortable so I could not hide that, I made it known wherever I went, and even inside our Cabinet room that that's how I felt. But I also understand that the circumstances we're in is unprecedented. We're living in really really difficult times, so we had to make difficult decision. No government in their right mind would want to be cutting salaries 6 months into their term, not even 6 years into your term you'd want to be doing that. And truth be told, in the 40 year independence of this country, we've never cut the salaries of public officers and teachers, this was a first, and so this was painful and difficult and very uncomfortable."
"I'm not sure how it will play out once it reaches there but I'm hoping in the meantime the unions and government can really work together. In terms of crisis comes opportunity and the opportunity here is for us to work together in a partnership because we have a mutually assured destruction path. If we fail, they fail, if they fail, we fail, the country fails. So we have to work together to make sure we meet our targets, to make sure we exceed our targets, to ensure that we are in a position to do the tings we are supposed to do for the people of this country. And the truth is that politicians like myself, we talk, we declare policy, we don't implement really, at the end of the day it's the public officers who have to implement, they are the ones on the frontline, they are the ones who have to be committed to this process, so all of us have to make sure that we get together and we do our best to make sure that we work together, to make sure that we keep each other honest."
