Strike Action Looms for Prisons
By Micah George

The Prison Service Association has given warning to Government of an impending industrial action if nothing is done about the grievances its members have outlined to Government several times last year via letters.
“The Association is awaiting 5th March, 2008 to decide on our next step forward,” President Christiani Leon said yesterday.
The Association on February 15, 2008 wrote to Prime Minister Stephenson King seeking his intervention in its row with the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Home Affairs and National Security. It was on February 1st, 2008 that the Association wrote to the Permanent Secretary about his Ministry’s seemingly unwillingness to comply with certain facets of the 2004-2007 Collective Agreement and the continuous delaying tactics employed to frustrate their implementation.
The Association then called on the Ministry to implement, within 30 days, Article 16 of the agreement that deals with transportation and Article 26 that deals with insurance coverage.
The Association’s general membership had in an earlier meeting (November 2nd 2007) agreed to embark on industrial action to force the Ministry to adhere to the Collective Agreement. However, this action was deferred due to specific information the Association received from the Permanent Secretary at the time.
Since then nothing has happened, the situation still remains the same, no further information has come from the Ministry causing the Association to write to the Permanent Secretary admonishing that the issues were outstanding and long overdue for some attention.
The Association is now willing to demonstrate how serious its members are in seeing that their grievances are adequately resolved that it has threaten strike action if the Ministry does not adhere to its demands within the stipulated time frame.

In a bid to avert the impending strike action the Association is requesting an audience with Prime Minister King to show him how and why the Ministry appears to be insensitive to their plight.
According to Leon since the opening of the Bordelais Correctional Facility on 15th January 2003 staff of the Facility has been faced with the challenge of accessing reliable and safe means of transportation to and from the facility. This, he said, exposes staff to the mercy of the weather and other misadventures that may be lurking in secluded places like on the road to the facility.
This has led to the Association contracting buses to transport staff to and from the Facility at pre-agreed points north and south of the island. This, the Association did, whilst having dialogue with Government for the provision of transportation since the policy directive from the Ministry was that Government would not bear transportation costs for staff. Those who used the contracted buses had to pay a monthly fee for the service by way of salary deduction to the Association.
Dialoguing with Government led to a16 seat bus being hand over to the Association donated BY Beachcomber through the Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security, the Ministry of Labour Relations, Public Service and co-operatives and the Management of Bordelais.
This bus is presently being used to transport staff from the north of the island but due to inadequate space an additional bus is being utilized to transport staff to work on mornings while a bus is contracted to transport staff from the south on a monthly basis.
According to Leon from November 2005 the above-mentioned authorities came to an agreement with the Association over several things such as the new vehicle to be used to service the north of the island, while a contracted bus will be use to service the south. Also, that negotiation under the Collective Agreement would be pursued and that the various ministries would sensitize the Prime Minister on developments.
It turned out that some of the things agreed to have not materialized hence the March 5th deadline given to Government.