Last week’s industrial action saw employees of the Anguilla Social Security Board laying aside their duties and holding out on a “sit-in” for five days, from Monday 12th February to Friday 16th February. By Monday 19th February, though, the staff was back to work in a rather regular mode, pending a meeting with the Chairlady of the Board.
During the Government Press Conference of Monday 19th February, the Honourable Premier and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ellis Webster was asked what his position was on the situation, relative to the grievances of the staff which included critical human resource vacancies as well as non-payment of the December 2023 ex-gratia award to the staff.
“I would say it was unfortunate that the industrial action happened,” he said. “The issue of vacancies has been longstanding and we should have had dialog regarding that. In terms of the Director, there have been three advertisements put out and three interviews were done.”
According to the Social Security Act,” he said, “the Governor is the one that approves the Social Security Director. Unfortunately, the Government itself does not have much of a say in how the Director is chosen. By the way, I think that we need to change that in the Amendments to the Social Security Act.”
He noted that there was someone who was selected as Director, but that person had since turned down the offer. He said that the Board and the Governor’s Office were currently working together with urgency to find someone to be the Director so that the institution can continue the way forward. He said that in terms of the other vacancies, the Board should be working on filling them.
With regard to the ex-gratia awards, the Premier was asked whether all statutory bodies were entitled to receive the additional one-month’s salary which he announced in December 2023.
“No!” he answered. “If one reads the Executive Council Minutes, it will be seen that the intention was to award ex-gratia payments only to public servants and to the employees of statutory bodies to which the Government pays subventions. That was the intention.”
“Also,” the Premier continued, “the Boards of all the other statutory bodies [to which no Government subventions are paid] were encouraged to consider paying their staff an ex-gratia award. And that encouragement was given to the Social Security Board. However, that was a decision that the Board couldn’t make.”
He said that when the Social Security Board announced that they could not make the payments, for reasons which they specified, Government then offered to pay EC$1,000 to each employee.
However, sources reported that while some of the staff members accepted the EC$1,000, others rejected it.
When the Premier was asked why the Board decided not to pay the award, he answered: “They gave several reasons. One of the reasons was that the actuarial report showed that the fund would be in trouble over time; and that while the people were asked to increase their contribution rate by 1% percent starting in January 2024, one of the recommendations from the Actuary to the Board was that the Board decrease its administrative costs.”
Noting that the staff had put aside their duties for five days, and no statement was made from Government, the Premier confirmed that it would have been a breach of the Act to actually intervene, but that he had stayed in contact with the Chairperson of the Board throughout the course of the sit-in.
Staff members resumed their regular duties as of Monday 19th February, 2024.
