Dear Editor,
As soon as Jamaica entered this new agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) former Prime Minister Edward Seaga wrote an article about his 1980s experience with them. Seaga said that after the 1970s, when the economy lost 20 per cent of GDP, his 1980s Administration was told to cut the public sector by 30,000 jobs. Michael Manley had been told previously to cut 10,000 jobs. He flatly refused.
Today we have come full circle, after years upon years of borrowing to pay wage bills, what we have to show for it is another threat of public sector layoffs. This time it is 15,000 jobs, in an economy battered by low and no growth levels.
We hear from the central bank that Jamaica, in 2014, attracted a new high of foreign direct investment of US$707 million ($81.3 billion), mostly in tourism and infrastructure. But we also hear that Jamaica's tax levels are higher than developing peers, nearly 25 per cent while other lower income countries are at 15.1 per cent.
When the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was in power the People's National Party (PNP) insisted that they pay the nurses, teachers, doctors and the police money that they knew would derail the IMF agreement. Today the PNP are in power and it is the JLP who are making the demands also knowing that it will derail the programme. We continue this vicious circle while Jamaicans suffer.
Effectively we are back in the 1980s. The wage "negotiations" have tight constraints, there is little room to manoeuvre, but the JLP sees a political opportunity. It is 15,000 jobs now; by the time they win it will be 45,000, that indeed would be a pyrrhic victory that we can ill afford. We all need to put Jamaica first. Horace Dalley cannot make the unions "an offer they can't refuse"; he isn't Don Corleone in The Godfather. If this IMF deal falls through all of us will suffer, the five years of pay freeze would have been in vain. If the JLP gains from the PNP's pain it will all be in vain, and the group in the United States Congress that begged IMF chief Christine Lagarde to rescue us from social implosion wouldn't have mattered. Remember, even after this IMF agreement ends, Jamaica will still be going through recession for years to come.
Mark Clarke
Siloah PO, St Elizabeth
mark_clarke9@yahoo.com
Playing politics with wages, jobs
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As soon as Jamaica entered this new agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) former Prime Minister Edward Seaga wrote an article about his 1980s experience with them. Seaga said that after the 1970s, when the economy lost 20 per cent of GDP, his 1980s Administration was told to cut the public sector by 30,000 jobs. Michael Manley had been told previously to cut 10,000 jobs. He flatly refused.
Today we have come full circle, after years upon years of borrowing to pay wage bills, what we have to show for it is another threat of public sector layoffs. This time it is 15,000 jobs, in an economy battered by low and no growth levels.
We hear from the central bank that Jamaica, in 2014, attracted a new high of foreign direct investment of US$707 million ($81.3 billion), mostly in tourism and infrastructure. But we also hear that Jamaica's tax levels are higher than developing peers, nearly 25 per cent while other lower income countries are at 15.1 per cent.
When the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was in power the People's National Party (PNP) insisted that they pay the nurses, teachers, doctors and the police money that they knew would derail the IMF agreement. Today the PNP are in power and it is the JLP who are making the demands also knowing that it will derail the programme. We continue this vicious circle while Jamaicans suffer.
Effectively we are back in the 1980s. The wage "negotiations" have tight constraints, there is little room to manoeuvre, but the JLP sees a political opportunity. It is 15,000 jobs now; by the time they win it will be 45,000, that indeed would be a pyrrhic victory that we can ill afford. We all need to put Jamaica first. Horace Dalley cannot make the unions "an offer they can't refuse"; he isn't Don Corleone in The Godfather. If this IMF deal falls through all of us will suffer, the five years of pay freeze would have been in vain. If the JLP gains from the PNP's pain it will all be in vain, and the group in the United States Congress that begged IMF chief Christine Lagarde to rescue us from social implosion wouldn't have mattered. Remember, even after this IMF agreement ends, Jamaica will still be going through recession for years to come.
Mark Clarke
Siloah PO, St Elizabeth
mark_clarke9@yahoo.com
Playing politics with wages, jobs
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