Civil Servants get 10.5% pay increase in Barbados

By Melissa Bryant
Reporter~SKNVibes.com

~~Adz:Right~~BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - PARLIAMENT has agreed to a 10.5 percent wage increase for Barbados’ public workers, including parliamentarians and ministers, over the next two years.

According to Caribbean 360, Prime Minister David Thompson told the House of Assembly that although the government could not give civil servants as much as the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) had initially requested, the figure they had agreed to would be the highest increase over a two-year period in the last 14 years.

The agreement was brokered between the NUPW and government in October of this year (2008) and will see workers getting a six percent pay hike in the first year, retroactive from April 1, 2008 and a 4.5 percent increase in the second year, beginning April 1, 2009. Pensioners will also get larger payments.

The increased salaries and wages will take government's Wage Bill to approximately BDS$1B in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

However, despite this increase, Opposition Leader Mia Mottley has called for the government to do more for workers, such as granting the lowest paid workers a special cost of living allowance that would kick in if inflation rose above an agreed amount.