by Linda Straker
- NDC administration reportedly contemplating statutorising or privatising health sector
- Contributory pension scheme on lowly paid contract and unestablished workers not an attractive prospect for GPWU
- In October 2022 Labour Minister said Government needs to reform 1958 pension payment system for retired public officers
Brian Grimes, President of the Grenada Public Workers Union (GPWU), has described Government’s strategy to privatise or statutorise healthcare in the future as one that is not in the best interest of citizens, because healthcare should be accepted as a public good. “It has been reported that the NDC administration is contemplating statutorising or privatising the health sector. The union wants to place on record its firm and complete disapproval of this policy position. Healthcare is a public good,” he said.
“We urge the Government of Grenada to rethink its strategy,” said Grimes who reminded the Government which was elected in June 2022, that before its official installation and during its period of governance, it expressed a firm commitment to improving healthcare. “The relinquishing of responsibility to a private firm will be a bitter betrayal to healthcare workers and the citizens of Grenada who desire affordable healthcare,” Grimes said while addressing hundreds of workers who represented all 7 unions in Grenada during May Day celebrations. He said, “In the area of healthcare, the union has immeasurable concerns on the continued deterioration of an all-important public good.”
Speaking about pension reform which is expected to affect current contracted and non- established workers in the public service, Grimes said the implication of this initiative is not an attractive prospect for the union. “Let it be known that the implication of a contributory pension scheme on lowly paid contract and unestablished workers is not an attractive prospect for the union especially with the anaemic regularisation for our members,” he said. “You ain’t regularising we members but you want to make them pay 3% on their salary if they are making less than $1,500, that making any sense? We cannot agree to this in the current construct.”
This was the first time Grimes disclosed any detail publicly about the pension reform initiative and the possible cost to public servants who will have to start paying that contribution as of June 2024.
In March 2022, a High Court Judge ruled that the constitutional rights of appointed public officers were violated when Government enacted the Pension Disqualification Act that went into effect in 1985. The matter was not appealed and hundreds of workers who retired from the service have since received pension payment.
However, Labour Minister Claudette Joseph told the Upper House of Parliament in October 2022 that Government needs to reform the 1958 pension payment system for retired public officers. “If we regularise contract workers across the board without at the same time treating with pension reform, what do we do, we bloat the public service, we expand the public service and in so doing the amount of people who will be eligible for a pension.”
“We call on our friends in the labour movement to sit with us and work out an acceptable mode going forward where everyone will be happy, where we will not leave an unbearable financial burden for those who come after us, and where those who retire going forward will not have to retire into poverty,” she said.
