We also asked the Minister of Public Service about the recent negotiations with the crown counsels. As we have been reporting, a majority of the crowns staged a sickout last week - and returned today after successful negotiations with the Attorney General on Friday.
Our reports say that got a 17% raise and a security allowance. But the Minister says the remuneration of crowns is a little complicated:
Reporter
"We understand it was a sickout."
Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service
"I don't know. I don't know the details of what was going on. But I can say that they did meet the representative, at least, of the prosecutors last week Friday."
Jules Vasquez
"As the Fin Sec pointed out, whenever you can't make changes in a vacuum in the vast bureaucracy that is public service emoluments. But these people were owed an increment which they never received from under UDP days. So that creates a kind of wrinkle."
Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service
"There are a number of issues that we have to look at. When it comes to the increments, there are some crown consels that did get it, some that didn't. So it can't be across the board. we have to apply the increment to everyone. So we have to look at all of their files to make sure that the persons who are requesting that particular increment that they didn't receive it."
"I'm not sure what was happening in that ministry a few years ago because there were some that received and some do. Maybe they just didn't realize that they were entitled to an increment. There were others that came in when they had not gotten their CLE yet."
"And when they got their CLE, they were bumped up and they were saying that they should have been bumped up plus the increment. So there are a lot of issues and we have to look at each file to see where it applies and how we can make sure it's equitable."
