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The meeting should commence April 26 (next week Wednesday).
President Helene Davis Whyte said the union and the ministry were not able to reach an amicable agreement last Thursday (April 13) when the parties involved met.
She said that the Finance and the Public Service Ministry, through several circulars, instructed government ministries, departments and agencies not to make payments related to duty allowance and increments.
"Those were issues that were never discussed or agreed with the Government. So, it is in that context that we deem it to be a breach of the heads of agreement," said Davis Whyte.
Added to that, she said there are also concerns related to issues involving the payment of mileage.
"They have sent out instructions to say payments should not be made. I have not had any information yet on the increments, but certainly, in respect to the duty allowance and the mileage, the various departments have made changes based on what these circulars have said, and so they have not been paying the duty allowance and aspects of mileage," the union head said.
She revealed that increments, which are performance based payments, were due in 2022, but that instructions were sent out to withhold payments for the three-year implementation period.
Davis Whyte said that the JCTU has taken note of this and is "waiting to see" what will happen.
She also said that while it is not immediately clear how many public sector workers are affected by the non-payment of mileage and duty allowance, the workers are concerned.
Davis Whyte indicated that there are several issues with the calculation of salaries.
She revealed that at Thursday’s meeting, it was agreed that workers would start by reporting issues to their local payroll offices, and if there is no resolution, it should be escalated to the finance ministry, through the unions.
Meanwhile, she said that the union is expected to be told at next Wednesday’s meeting whether the ministry will be accepting its concerns and make the necessary corrections.
“When we get to that meeting, dependent on what is the outcome, ... there will be a determination as to whether workers are satisfied and, therefore, if normality in the public service will remain or whether workers will want us to move to some kind of action,” said Davis Whyte.
In the meantime, the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), in an April 8 circular to members, said that it was "painfully" aware that some teachers had not yet receives their March salaries and that others are querying the accuracy of the amounts they were paid.
The JTA statement:
"We can unquestionably indicate that all senior teachers were incorrectly paid and are collectively owed millions."
The JTA also noted that "a myriad of other discrepancies" had come to the fore and that it was working "tirelessly" to resolve these issues.
In an interview with Beyond the Headlines' Dionne Jackson-Miller on Monday, acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Maureen Dwyer, admitted that there were several discrepancies with teachers’ March salaries that had to be "manually" worked through because of the tight timeline to prepare the payroll.
She said that the ministry had promised to pay all teachers, but that that did not materialize because of anomalies in the system.
She also said that some 17,000 teachers are paid by the ministry, while 9,000 are bursar-paid.
"We were working with our partners at the Ministry of Finance and we underestimated the time that it would take. Nonetheless, in the end, we were able to pay most of our teachers towards the end of the month," Dwyer said.
She however revealed that there was a minor hiccup causing further delay, when several banks had sent back salaries and that the ministry had to figure out why this was happening. She said that those teachers have since been paid.
Additionally, she said that the ministry has been "making strides" in terms of reducing late payments to teachers, but admitted, “We are not there yet.”
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