AFTER fewer than 100 days in office, the chief minister and his Policy Council are facing a major challenge to a central plank of government policy: restraining expenditure at or below the increase in the island’s retail price index.
It is posed by the manual workers’ reluctance to accept a 3% pay award and the wider union concern that they face a call for wage restraint at a time when Guernsey’s cost of living has risen to a 17-year high of 5.5%.
Although it does not fall to the council to resolve pay issues, ministers will have to deal with the consequences - and these are likely to be profound.
A well supported strike lasting for any length of time would severely disrupt the island, closing the airport, affecting the harbours and paralysing many businesses here relying on the postal service for imports and exports. In addition, while householders might survive a strike by sewage cart drivers, many commercial properties, including hotels, need their services daily.
So the action would be a major inconvenience, but many islanders would have at least some sympathy for the manual staff because they are some of the lowest paid workers in the island and, like street cleaners, hospital porters and home helps, can rely on a sympathy vote to win a living wage at a time of high inflation.
Yet whatever settlement eventually emerges, it will be taken as a benchmark for all other States employees, including civil servants, and that has profound implications for taxpayers.
Some 47.4p of every £1 taken off islanders in tax already goes towards paying public sector employees, which is why containing that £164m. cost is so important to the island’s fiscal strategy as it struggles to balance the books having scrapped tax on business profits under zero-10.
So the stakes are high and will rise higher as a number of deputies will undoubtedly side with the men and seek to influence a ‘realistic’ settlement.
Whatever happens on Monday and in the days that follow, it is to be hoped for the benefit of the island that the union side chooses not to exercise its industrial muscle.
There is still time to reach a negotiated settlement before the island is damaged.
Strike call: There’s still time to talk
AFTER fewer than 100 days in office, the chief minister and his Policy Council are facing a major challenge to a central plank of government policy: restraining expenditure at or below the increase in the island’s retail price index.
It is posed by the manual workers’ reluctance to accept a 3% pay award and the wider union concern that they face a call for wage restraint at a time when Guernsey’s cost of living has risen to a 17-year high of 5.5%.
Although it does not fall to the council to resolve pay issues, ministers will have to deal with the consequences - and these are likely to be profound.
A well supported strike lasting for any length of time would severely disrupt the island, closing the airport, affecting the harbours and paralysing many businesses here relying on the postal service for imports and exports. In addition, while householders might survive a strike by sewage cart drivers, many commercial properties, including hotels, need their services daily.
So the action would be a major inconvenience, but many islanders would have at least some sympathy for the manual staff because they are some of the lowest paid workers in the island and, like street cleaners, hospital porters and home helps, can rely on a sympathy vote to win a living wage at a time of high inflation.
Yet whatever settlement eventually emerges, it will be taken as a benchmark for all other States employees, including civil servants, and that has profound implications for taxpayers.
Some 47.4p of every £1 taken off islanders in tax already goes towards paying public sector employees, which is why containing that £164m. cost is so important to the island’s fiscal strategy as it struggles to balance the books having scrapped tax on business profits under zero-10.
So the stakes are high and will rise higher as a number of deputies will undoubtedly side with the men and seek to influence a ‘realistic’ settlement.
Whatever happens on Monday and in the days that follow, it is to be hoped for the benefit of the island that the union side chooses not to exercise its industrial muscle.
There is still time to reach a negotiated settlement before the island is damaged.
Article posted on 19th July, 2008 - 9.30am