'Teachers' Retention Premium Can't Distort SSSS'
The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) has stated that the 15 per cent retention premium given to teachers will not distort the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), as is being claimed in certain quarters.
Under the SSSS, retention premiums are monetary incentives given to professionals in short supply in the economy.
Mr George Smith-Graham, Executive Director of the FWSC, explains that the retention premium is an incentive separate from allowances linked to the SSSS.
He explains further that the retention premium is part of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) but does not affect the relativities in salaries on the structure in any way.
On March 11, 2011, the government, the FWSC and teachers’ unions agreed on a 15 per cent retention premium for all teachers and some members of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) after long drawn demonstrations by teachers when they were roped onto the SSSS at the end of February and they complained about their levels on the structure.
Subsequently, some people have argued that the agreement has set a bad precedent, as other professionals may also adopt the tactics adopted by teachers, bend the arms of the government to give them a similar or much more premium and distort the internal relativities in the SSSS.
That, they added, would defeat the purpose of the spine as instituting the constitutional principle of “equal pay for equal work”.
But Mr Smith-Graham said retention premiums were part of the SSPP because of the acknowledgement that some skills would have to be retained in certain professions.
The strategy of the FWSC, however, was to begin with professions already enjoying those premiums and institute a standard before expanding that to cover other professions that justifiably were in short supply in the economy, he explained.
He said granting teachers the 15 per cent retention premium was just bringing forward a scheduled plan.
He said the payment of retention premiums was, by the stringent application of research, to find out the gaps that needed to be filled in a particular profession and that any group of professionals arguing for that needed to justify its demands before the FWSC.