And while that's yesterday's discussion, reports reaching the press are that the joint unions want their own meeting with the government's negotiating team to discuss the pay cut and other topics. When Fonseca was asked about that, he said that GOB has agreed to schedule such a meeting for December 8th:
Reporter
"The joint unions are asking for a separate meeting to talk economics and finance, they say it's time for us to get back that 10%, is that meeting going to happen?"
Hon. Francis Fonseca - Minister of Education
"Yes, we have in fact proposed a meeting I think for December 8 with the junt as we call them and that was always on the table of course."
Reporter
"Now the SIB has reported that there is a 15% growth in the economy for this 3rd quarter and obviously I believe that the unions are looking at that to say, give us back back our 10%, what do you say to them?"
Hon. Francis Fonseca
"Well first of all, the government has always been, I think the prime minister has made this very clear, we're absolutely committed to doing that but what's why it's important to have this social partnership committee. In the undertaking that we gave to the unions, we all agreed that the issue of reviewing the salary adjustment would be done at the end of the fiscal and we talked about a performance bonus in that letter of undertakings which come into effect 90 days after the end of the fiscal year after we had sat down and looked at all the figures."
Daniel Ortiz
"Are you concerned that in trying to make that case to the representatives of the public servants that the jaded opinion starts to be formed that this will continuously be pushed back and we will never get to a place where that 10% will be returned."
Hon. Francis Fonseca
"No I don't think so because I think certainly based on our discussions with the unions, I think they recognized that we are absolutely sincere about that issue. We made a commitment, the consulting team headed by the deputy prime minister, we made a commitment to them that we would continue to ensure that issue is on the table front and center and we have discussed it many times at the cabinet level, so I know that the prime minister is committed to it and our consulting team is committed to it. So, we are going to set our a very clear structured plan to make sure that happens at the very earliest."
