Consultants to review union concerns over public service job evaluation

The government’s consultants have agreed to review concerns raised by the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) about job evaluations across the public service and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Barbados TODAY can reveal.

After an internal review of the Jobs Evaluation Report, union representatives met with the Ministry of the Public Service on Tuesday to discuss their concerns, according to NUPW General Secretary Richard Green.

He said: “We would have highlighted some concerns based on feedback from members and based on experiences we had… with the job evaluation exercise.

“This is with [a] view to meeting with our wider membership to advise and explain what we recognised from the report in the job evaluation exercise and to provide to the members any clarifications, and also to get information and feedback from them on what they too experienced based on the report.”

Green outlined some of the key concerns presented to the ministry: “We highlighted some areas we felt were inconsistent, some positions that were red-circled rather than green-circled, put positions relative to the criteria they had used for scoring, and outlined those areas we felt needed some redress.”

He continued: “The consultants have agreed to take another look at those areas, and the union too made some commitments for further review of those specific posts.”

Green declined to elaborate on the specific posts, saying the union needed to give the consultants the first opportunity to address them.

The NUPW chief said the issue was still “very much” in process, which was why the union had reviewed the document and submitted its concerns.

“We are the ones who initiated the meeting, so we will act as swiftly as possible in the interest of the members. So, as soon as they are ready, we will be ready. We are being proactive about it and raising the concerns on behalf of the members.”

The next step, Green said, was to meet with members.

“We are working through the process, so we are not pinning down anybody to a specific time, but we are moving fast on it.

We are definitely looking at before the end of the year to have the whole process completed.”

Noting that this was the first job evaluation in 20 years, Green explained what it aimed to achieve for the more than 20 000 public officers and SOEs.

“It is looking to apportion a fair value to the jobs in the public service now, considering changes to conditions of service, changes in the market value of the posts, conditions in the different skills and competencies that might be brought to the job, to make the public service function more efficiently, effectively and more fit for purpose, and for the union to make sure that its members are getting fair compensation for their work.”

(EJ)