President of the Jamaica Teachers' Association, Doran Dixon, says teachers are expecting due payments. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

Same game, same rules. That's pretty much the hard-nosed stance of Jamaica Teachers' Association President (JTA) Doran Dixon, who said the 20,000-plus membership is expecting to receive the seven per cent negotiated wage settlement for 2009/2010 in April.

Their hands are also open for the balance of retroactive payments for the reclassification exercise by June.

A wage freeze, or deferral of a seven per cent increase for public sector workers for the new financial year, has been put on the table as the Government and the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions (JCTU) hold talks to save public-sector jobs in the wake of the global economic crisis, which has been affecting Jamaica.

Medical doctors working in public hospitals and the island's correctional officers have been in a militant mood due to the slow pace of wage talks with the Government.

President of the Jamaica Workers Union (JWU), Clifton Brown, said he had proposed that the Government offer salary bonds to public-sector workers for the 2009-2010 financial year.

This recommendation did not go down well with other members of the trade union.

Brown told The Gleaner Monday that he would also recommend that retroactive sums accruing to other public-sector workers such as teachers be settled in a bond offer.

Salary bonds

Asked whether the JTA would accept salary bonds from the Government, Dixon was not willing to give an official comment, but made it clear that the negotiated deal with the administration had not changed.

He said the Government had not approached the association on the matter of salary bonds.

However, Dixon sought to clear the air on retroactive payments to teachers, dismissing the notion that teachers had received a "windfall".

"The money for the realignment from April 2007 to March 2008 is due to be paid in June 2009," Dixon said, adding that the teachers had received 50 per cent of the retroactive sum due between April 2008 and November 2008 in December.

He argued that prior to the reclassification of teachers, which moved them up to 80 per cent of the market, members of the profession had been experiencing challenges in meeting their basic needs.

Elaborating on his proposal for the Government to issue salary bonds, Brown said monthly payment on interest could be made to public-sector workers until the instrument matures over a two- to three-year period.

The public-sector wage bill for the current fiscal year, which ended yesterday, is $111 billion.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com