Transcript
RAJESHWAR SINGH: We went and met her and drew her attention that this is happening at the National Fire Authority, that they are forming an in-house union and then the Executive Chairman and the Chief Fire Officer, the Chief Fire Officer made three or four trips all around the country, visiting each station and influencing our members that they should resign from the FPSA and join the in-house union. And the volunteer firemen were promised that if they joined the in-house union, they would be confirmed in their appointment, and many others who were on acting positions were promised that if they joined the in-house union and resigned from the FPSA they will be promoted. They went around and did all this. And the Registrar was informed. Apart from all that, we wrote to the Registrar that this is happening. But without taking any second look at that, without investigating properly what's happening there, she registered the union. When we asked her why.. tell us when it was registered and how, she evaded the question all together. But we took the matter to the Tribunal and there is a call on 1st November by the Tribunal to present oral arguments, and he has said in the Tribunal that we should be able to make a ruling by 4th November.
JOHNNY BLADES: Is this typical of things that are happening across unions in the country, or is this an isolated case?
RS: What is happening in the public sector, government entities or government enterprises are making it very difficult for us... There's no collective bargaining as such, neither in the public service nor in any of those... entities that are talking to us will just reply and will not proceed any further. And entities like Water Authority of Fiji, they do no even acknowledge our letters. For the last four or five years, we have filed a log of claims for pay rise our members. They have not acknowledged that. We have sent them draft, collective agreements to be negotiated. They have not responded to it. Some entities have responded but they are not making decisions.
JB: Didn't you lose the ability to negotiate for wages and conditions back in 2009 when the constitutional crisis sort of threw up these changes where the unions, you lost a lot of your rights, didn't you?
RS: Yeah, and now the pay rises are coming at the whim of the employer. Where ever we have submitted a log of claims, none of them have been negotiated so far. Last year we had applied for the log of claims for payrise, bonus payments - none responded. And now, under the new ERP (Employment Relations Promulgation) Amendment Act, we have filed to the arbitration court for the matter to be heard but the the arbitration court has just started functioning, but they are looking at cases (dating back) some eight years back which is on about settlement of disputes on dismissals and all that. We do not know when this will happen. The Tribunal has got about 137 of such cases, and 120 are ours. Fiji Public Service Association has about 120 dismissal cases.