Camille Clarke

Pris­ons of­fi­cers are now say­ing the ill­ness which threat­ened po­lice of­fi­cers will af­fect them if their de­mands are not met by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. So said gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion, Bur­ton Hill. He spoke out­side the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice in St Clair.

"We can­not strike or take protest ac­tion. Of­fi­cers can chose to work ac­cord­ing to rules. That is their choice. Some­times of­fi­cers be­come very de­mo­ti­vat­ed if they feel their de­mands aren't met," he said.

"No­body is sick at this mo­ment. We hope the ill­ness that af­fect­ed the Po­lice Ser­vice does not go across to the pris­ons. We hope it is not some air­borne dis­ease," he said.

Yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor to the Prime Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith met with the of­fi­cers and ac­cept­ed a let­ter which they wrote to Prime Min­is­ter. Hill said this was the as­so­ci­a­tion's fourth at­tempt to meet with the Prime Min­is­ter. "We an­tic­i­pate with­in sev­en days that we will be called to dis­cuss is­sues that cur­rent­ly af­fect the of­fi­cers. Some of which are non-cash items. We de­cid­ed to take this ac­tion to­day (yes­ter­day) be­cause we have not re­ceived the kind of re­sponse we de­serve," he said. Hill said pris­ons of­fi­cers were hop­ing for a pos­i­tive re­sponse for a meet­ing.

"If we do not re­ceive a re­sponse just as in the case of po­lice of­fi­cers, they may get ag­i­tat­ed," Hill said.

He said Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis al­so of­fered a wage in­crease of five per cent in cur­rent ne­go­ti­a­tions. "We are present­ly en­gaged in ne­go­ti­a­tions with the CPO. Five per cent was her best of­fer. All oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions have ben­e­fit­ed from be­tween 12 and 17 per cent in­crease in salary. Five per cent is un­re­al­is­tic and un­rea­son­able," Hill said. He said dur­ing the past year, three pris­ons of­fi­cers were killed and oth­er of­fi­cers as­sault­ed.