Dear Editor,

After our “prosperity” Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke made blatant promises on which the Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA) signed off, like Dorothy in wonderland, a sad feeling of unrest now looms over many civil servants. But who is to be blamed?

Is it the civil servants for trusting a union with little to no vision and focusing on big posts looming overseas? Is it the Government for not recognising the value of its employees or the disparity in wages that already exists?

One positive thing has come of all this — a mass exodus. As I write scores of civil servants are cancelling their memberships with a union which collects 1 per cent, an average of $3,500 per month, for leading its members down a long and disappointing path. A union which can only say, “This is not what we signed.”

This fee is more than my Sagicor health plan and even my life insurance policy, for which I’m sure to get greater benefits. There is far more I could do with my annual $60,000 dues, other than investing in a sinking ship.

If it were not for the police and the nurses, many times the negotiations would have had worst outcomes.

So I would ask our prosperity finance minister: How do you sleep knowing one band — your band — can buy a Toyota Prado while many others will have to become more indebted to loan sharks as they cannot afford a bicycle? Such disparity in this century is a shame.

But we are awake and, again, as I write hundreds of people are jumping off the Titanic and trying to navigate the seas themselves. This is due to the fact that many employees have already spent the promise that the Government is now recalling and are now left in limbo. Can the Government really do this? Where is the Opposition? Where is the Ministry of Labour? What action should the people take?

Fabian JA-Concern

gfc4u06@gmail.com