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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

St. Lucia government signs agreement with labour unions

by

35 days ago
20250617

The St. Lu­cia gov­ern­ment says it has “suc­cess­ful­ly” signed col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments (CBAs) with sev­en of the nine pub­lic sec­tor unions and staff as­so­ci­a­tions, which will re­sult in pub­lic sec­tor work­ers re­ceiv­ing salary in­creas­es of two per cent an­nu­al­ly with­in the 2022–2025 pe­ri­od.

It said that the agree­ments will al­so cov­er the 2025–2028 pe­ri­od, with the ex­cep­tion of a three per cent in­crease in the fi­nal year of the lat­ter tri­en­ni­um.

“This agree­ment re­flects our un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to our pub­lic of­fi­cers. It is a tes­ta­ment to what can be achieved through di­a­logue and mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing,” Prime Min­is­ter Phillip J Pierre said, adding that the gov­ern­ment re­mains ded­i­cat­ed to fos­ter­ing an eq­ui­table, re­spon­sive, and pro­gres­sive pub­lic ser­vice for all St. Lu­cians.

The gov­ern­ment de­scribed the sign­ing as “a mile­stone in the gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing fair and con­struc­tive re­la­tions with its pub­lic ser­vice work­force”.

It said that the agree­ments were signed on Mon­day and “sig­ni­fies a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment in the ne­go­ti­a­tions process that be­gan in De­cem­ber 2023.

“It un­der­scores the gov­ern­ment’s ded­i­ca­tion to en­gag­ing trans­par­ent­ly and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with its val­ued pub­lic of­fi­cers and em­ploy­ees,” the gov­ern­ment said, adding that through­out the past months, the Gov­ern­ment Ne­go­ti­at­ing Team (GNT) “metic­u­lous­ly en­gaged with unions rep­re­sent­ing var­i­ous sec­tors, in­clud­ing the St. Lu­cia Trade Union Fed­er­a­tion, the St. Lu­cia Cor­rec­tion­al Ser­vice Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, the St. Lu­cia Po­lice Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, the Na­tion­al Work­ers Union, and oth­ers”.

“Their ef­forts re­sult­ed in agree­ments that ad­dress both fi­nan­cial and non-fi­nan­cial mat­ters, aimed at im­prov­ing the wel­fare of pub­lic ser­vants.”

Ac­cord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, the key high­lights of the agree­ments in­clude, salary in­creas­es of two per cent an­nu­al­ly for each year with­in the 2022–2025 pe­ri­od, and sim­i­lar­ly for the sub­se­quent 2025–2028 pe­ri­od, with the ex­cep­tion of a three per cent in­crease in the fi­nal year of the lat­ter tri­en­ni­um.

It al­so al­lows for the in­tro­duc­tion of new pro­vi­sions to en­hance ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing pay­ments for mark­ing Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CXC) School-Based As­sess­ments, pay­ments to tem­po­rary teach­ers for prepa­ra­tion weeks, and op­tions for ex­tend­ing ma­ter­ni­ty leave as well as in­vest­ment in pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment for med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers and the pro­vi­sion of di­ag­nos­tic equip­ment to nurse prac­ti­tion­ers.

The gov­ern­ment said that ad­di­tion­al sup­port mea­sures, in­clud­ing uni­forms and laun­dry al­lowances for phar­ma­cists, and ini­tia­tives aimed at strength­en­ing men­tal health aware­ness among pub­lic of­fi­cers are among the ben­e­fits to the pub­lic sec­tor work­ers.

It said that the sign­ing marks an im­por­tant mile­stone in lay­ing “the foun­da­tion for on­go­ing en­gage­ment” and that the De­part­ment of the Pub­lic Ser­vice “re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with unions and staff as­so­ci­a­tions to re­solve out­stand­ing mat­ters”.

The gov­ern­ment said it re­it­er­ates its ded­i­ca­tion to cre­at­ing a fair and sup­port­ive work en­vi­ron­ment for all pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees, re­in­forc­ing its vi­sion to build a re­silient and pros­per­ous na­tion.

CAS­TRIES, St. Lu­cia, Jun 17, CMC –

CMC/as/ir/2025

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