The budget for government's new fiscal year will be presented in two weeks on Friday March 10th. The joint unions will be paying keen attention to hear if their increments will be restored.
Right now, government has given no indication on which way it will go, but, truthfully, there isn't much time left for any substantial negotiation - and that process hasn't even started yet.
We today spoke to the senior minister on the government side of the negotiating team about what's going to unfold in the next two weeks:
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"We have a follow up meeting with the unions on March 2nd. I believe, next week Thursday. We have taken their points of concern back to the Cabinet. We had a discussion about it yesterday. We had a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the budget and as a part of that discussion we discussed these issues. We will have another Cabinet meeting on Tuesday where we will have a follow up discussions and make some decision on these matters. So that when we go back to the table with the joint unions next week Thursday, I think we will be in a position to say to them clearly where we stand and hear from them. We have always said in terms of pension reform that is not something overnight that we will solve, but we certainly want to start the discussion. The issue of increments is critically important. We have already stated on the record that we are going unfreeze increments during this fiscal year. It is just a question of when we can do that, in terms of the financial situation. The unions obviously want it done on April 1st so that has been the discussion. I really believe we are very close - we're not very far apart and I think coming out of our meeting next week Thursday, I think we'll be all able to reach a fairly good agreement on the way forward."
We'll let you know next Thursday what that way forward is looking like.
We do know that the Bus Association has pledged its support to the joint unions as has the NTUCB, which met with the Bus Association last night. More on the current bus situation later on in tonight's news.
