THE States pay body is still refusing to answer questions put to it by Barry Brehaut over the airport firefighters’ 18% pay deal.
But the St Peter Port deputy is not going to let the matter drop.
‘I will now submit them formally through the rules of procedure to be asked at next month’s States meeting,’ he said.
Public Sector Remuneration Committee chairman Deputy Allister Langlois was saying nothing in public. Details of the agreement, announced on Friday, would not be divulged at this stage, he said, and he would not comment further.
Deputy Brehaut (pictured) will ask how the agreement had been reached without input from PSRC chief negotiator Steve Naftel, who is currently suspended, or from senior negotiator Terry Harnden, who was excluded from the talks.
‘Who has negotiated this settlement in the absence of experienced staff support?’ said Deputy Brehaut.
According to sources, Mr Naftel’s suspension stems from his exclusion from a meeting about the firefighters’ pay.
It is understood that when he tried to submit papers he considered relevant to the situation an argument developed.
Deputy Brehaut wants to know whether Deputy Langlois needed the support from the majority of his committee members to ‘broker a deal’ or whether he had been given authority on their behalf.
The Fire & Rescue Service was regarded as having the more complete skill set, according to Deputy Brehaut, so was it the PSRC’s intention to offer staff at the Town brigade a similar deal?
Public Services minister Bernard Flouquet said he could not comment on the pay deal.
‘But whatever pay agreement is made comes from our budget as the employing department,’ he said.
The deal is said to be worth about £5,000 per man, which would cost the department more than £150,000 a year.
Deputy Flouquet would not be drawn on whether this could result in cutbacks elsewhere.
Deputy Brehaut also wants to know what implications the new deal would have for the States pension scheme and how it sat with the strategic tax policy which relied on public sector pay restraint.
Unite regional industrial organiser Ron Le Cras was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Article posted on 23rd December, 2009 - 1.00pm
4 Article Comments
When one considers that the manual workers annual pay award has not had a negotiated settlment for so long now one could say, not within living memory, and has had to be settled by outside abitration. Then consider the time that the airport firefighters dispute dragged on until it became a disater.
Perhaps it is the absence of so called experienced staff support that has made an agreement possible. After all when on looks back on the absence of negotiated settlements between the States and its manual workers for such a long time now,the question the springs to mind is what has PSRC chief negotiator Steve Naftel been paid for.
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Manual workers are not the only pay group whom the PSRC and therefore the Officers of that Committee are responsible for. Mr Naftel’s remit is far wider than what Pete is suggesting.
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Perhaps the PSRC of old and Naftel were indeed adhering to their States remit of keeping costs down,but as certain as day follows night there seems to be,as posts suggest,very little negotiating taking place ,hence the protraction of process and the almost instant application by Naftel and co to go to arbitration without investigating the history behind specific departmental issues.
Complacency and departmental laziness towards any resolution seem to me not the way forward within a professional Goverment department.
Lets hope that the new PSRC and with the exclusion of inefficient negotiators,an efficient and speedy way forward is adopted within future pay/condition talks with all PSE’s,Health workers etc.
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alot of people know me as tiny
i use to work at states works then guernsey telecoms i now live in france and watch the news every night
the airport fire fighters dont do any more work then the hospital staff or states works which keep the island running hospital staff keeping people alive what more do you want give them 18% all of them not just the airport fire men .if not god help you all when wage time comes 18% or strike
states take your choice
ta tiny rogers
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