A 72-hour strike notice has been issued on the National Water Commission (NWC) as workers continue to be restive over unresolved salary issues.

The notice was issued last Friday by the trade unions representing the workers.

These are the National Workers Union (NWU), the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), the Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers (JALGO) and the Union of Public and Private Employees.

In a letter to NWC President Mark Barnett, copied to the media, the unions acknowledged receipt of an email from the company conveying the response of the Finance Ministry to concerns and position advanced at a meeting on July 3.

They said the response was deemed unacceptable by the workers who subsequently mandated the unions to advise that if the matter is not satisfactorily resolved within 3 days, then the workers will have no option but to resort to taking industrial action.

The unions expressed hope that the management of the NWC and the Finance Ministry will recognize the urgency of the situation and will therefore act promptly to finalize the exercise to the satisfaction of the workers.

The exercise referred to is a salary scale review; a process that has been a contentious one, for the past 2 months.

The workers claim that with the current pay scale, NWC’s technical staff such as mechanics, meter readers, and plumbers, are seeing low payments on the compensation scale. 

The workers also believe that the scale used to gauge compensation for public sector workers should not be applied to the NWC staff.