Doctors’ pay fight ends in major win

Following the Industrial Disputes Tribunal’s landmark ruling in favour of doctors in their long-running allowances dispute with the State, senior trade unionist Lambert Brown says the medical practitioners are ready to meet with the Government to implement the award.

In a quick response on Monday, Brown said the doctors were pleased with the outcome.

“We receive the award [ruling] just after 4 p.m. and we can confirm that award is in favour of the doctors and the two issues before the tribunal,” he said.

In making the Jamaica Medical Doctors’ Association’s (JMDA) case before the IDT, Brown presented 170 pieces of evidence.

Just after receiving the ruling, Brown said the doctors “are happy and satisfied with the outcome and look forward to meeting with the Government to implement the award. It has been 42 long months. It’s time to put this dispute to an end”.

The JMDA was pushing for the IDT to make an award of $31 billion in back pay for overtime, while the Government had calculated the retroactive sum at $23 billion.

With Monday’s award, the JMDA is expected to receive what is believed to be the largest-ever quasi-judicial payout from the Government.

In arriving at its decision, at least one member of the three-member IDT panel, while concurring with the majority ruling regarding the emergency duty allowance, dissented in relation to the reinstatement of the incentive allowance.

The IDT upheld the JMDA’s position of preserving a specialised emergency duty compensation system for public-sector doctors and restoring the incentive allowance retroactively to April 1, 2023, rather than the Government’s proposed August 1, 2024 date.

The tribunal found that the incentive allowance was not validly removed or absorbed into basic salary because there was no mutual agreement to end it. The JMDA had contended that the Government unilaterally and unlawfully discontinued the incentive allowance as at April 1, 2023.

The IDT award applied to the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, the University Hospital of the West Indies, Bellevue Hospital, the Ministry of National Security and Peace and other relevant public health facilities.

The IDT rejected the Government’s standard public-sector overtime policy.

Under its extra-hours-worked policy for the public sector, the Government abolished specialised sessional-rate categories and replaced them with a flat-multiplier overtime model – 1.5x for standard weekdays and the first rest day, and 2.0x for the second rest day and public holidays.

However, the IDT found that the flat extra-hours-worked model, with a 15-hour weekly cap, was unsuitable for continuous 24-hour healthcare operations and patient-safety requirements.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com