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Workers to receive 6 months pay arrears

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All public service workers in the country will enjoy a six month back pay when the single Spine Pay Policy (SSSS) comes into effect in July this year. This will result from an across board increase in salaries which takes retrospective effect from January this year. The Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), Mr. George Smith-Graham, who disclosed this said the increase is to cushion those who may not directly benefit from salary increase this year when the implementation of the policy beings. Mr. Smith-Graham was briefing members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises on preparations made so far for the implementation of the policy. He however, declined to give the percentage of the increment, saying government will come out with it after all the necessary arrangements have been made. He said although the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) would not make any public service worker worse off, some workers would be disadvantaged in the first year and therefore called on workers to be modest in their high expectations of policy. Mr. Smith-Graham said the SSPP was not necessarily to increase salaries in the first year of its implementation but to attract and retain people in the public service and gradually work along to ensure that salary structure in the service was comparable to that of the private sector. Under the policy, he said all public sector organizations are placed on a 25-level single spine Job Grading Structure where placement of all jobs within the organization on any level of the structure shall be determined on the basis of job evaluation. That, he said, would ensure both internal and external equity within the organization and the wider public service respectively. There will also be a corresponding 25 level unified salary structure that would place all public sector employees on one vertical structure with incremental pay points from the lowest to the highest in an organization. Mr. Smith-Graham said the structure would be on a base pay and relatively which is currently at the final stages of negotiations between government and organized labour. Changes in the salary structure, he said, might result from changes in the base pay and relatively through negotiations between government and organized labour. Mr. Smith-Graham said agitations by individual private service organization for salary increase from government would be over as there already exist Public services Joint Standing Committee which would negotiate on behalf of all organizations with the commission.

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