JCSA Prospect president Terry Renouf said the pay dispute between the board and the civil servants that he represents, which has been going on for more than a year, could have been settled within three months if it had been handled better.
The SEB’s most recent offer of 1% permanent pay rises for 2018 and 2019 and an inflation +1.3% wage increase for 2020 to civil servants, was rejected by JCSA Prospect and Unite the union.
Mr Renouf said that a meeting of members was being arranged with Unite to decide the next steps, which may include further industrial action further to that taken in the past 12 months, including a number of strikes.
‘We met with the Chief Minister [John Le Fondré], States chief executive [Charlie Parker] and [SEB vice-chairman] Constable Richard Buchanan earlier this year. Senator Le Fondré said that both sides would need to move their position if there was to be a settlement,’ he said.
‘At that stage the deal related to 2018 and 2019 and we have shifted our position but the SEB has not. They have said that introducing a deal for 2020 was moving their position but that is not moving their position for 2018 or 2019, which was what we were negotiating.
‘We are trying to arrange a meeting of members of JCSA Prospect and Unite at the moment so that we can agree the way forward with members.’
Mr Renouf said he felt that having politicians with no experience of running an organisation as challenging as the Jersey public sector had been harmful to the negotiation process.
‘We have never gotten to meet the States Employment Board, it’s always been their intermediaries. And I think because of that there has been a lacking in message clarity during the dispute,’ he said.
‘We don’t know what the SEB has been saying or what they have been telling their representatives to come to us with. I think there would be more clarity if we were to meet with them directly.
‘The States Members come on to the States Employment Board and they have no experience of dealing with large and diverse workforces. There are around 7,500 workers employed by the States, which is about a fifth of the Island’s total work force.
‘So, how are you meant to run an organisation like that if you’ve never done it before? I think it has made things worse.’
He added: ‘The pay dispute should never have lasted this long. Really, it should have been settled in just two or three months.’
