Following three years of stability, some staff at the University of the West Indies Global Campus at The Pine, St Michael, are up in arms once again over the delay in the payment of salaries.
They have not been paid for November as yet and they are getting uneasy about the possibility of December’s payment not making it in time for them to enjoy the Christmas season.
A spokesperson for the staff told the MIDWEEK NATION recently that they started to get concerned when the payment was late in October.
Back in 2020 to 2022 the Global Campus (Open Campus) experienced chronic delays in the payment of salaries almost on a monthly basis to the extent that it led to industrial action by other campuses throughout the Caribbean.
There were even suggestions that the campuses which operate in several Caribbean territories were bankrupt. The campus depends on finance from its students and also from the main universities such as the Cave Hill Campus.
In December 2022, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley advanced funds to the Global Campus here in order for the staff to get their salaries for Christmas.
The spokesperson said October’s salary was received in November and then staff were sent two emails from Pro Vice Chancellor and Principal Francis Severin, indicating that their salaries would be late for November.
In the first email which was sent out on December 4, Severin advised that the November payroll was “scheduled to reach the relevant regional headquarters accounts by December 8, with subsequent allocation and routing to facilitate the processing of salaries on December 9.”
However, recently he sent further correspondence advising that the payment of salaries was further delayed.
“Following our urgent enquiries today [yesterday] with ministry officials, we were advised that the funds scheduled to be sent last Friday, December 5, were unfortunately delayed in their internal processing and were only completed today.”
He noted that November payroll would now be completed “within the next two days at most”, adding “please be assured that we are closely monitoring the situation and remain confident in the revised timeline”.
Pointing out that this was affecting staff from the top to the bottom, including administrative and technical staff, the spokesperson revealed that immediately upon receiving this information on Monday night, they contacted representatives at the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU).
“Staff in Jamaica only got paid last Friday because they withdrew their services. We reached out to our industrial relations officer at the BWU but we were informed that the decision to withdraw our services would have to go to the executive council.”
The spokesperson said staff at the Global Campus were still haunted by the period of 2020 to 2022 when the payroll was chronically late, leaving several of them in a financial dilemma, unable to pay their mortgages and meet other financial commitments. She recalled that even back then, staff at the Barbados Global Campus remained on the job while those at other campuses took industrial action.
“We thought things had settled down but in October it creep back up. The demon creep back up,” she said.
“We got paid for October in November. Then we were promised that we would get paid today for November’s payroll but last night we received correspondence,” she said, adding that based on the correspondence they did not anticipate being paid until the next two weeks.
“They still have to send it to Cave Hill bursary because they do our payroll and then they have to send it off to the bank and then the credit unions.
“They have not told us anything as yet about the December payroll which is due next week Tuesday on the 19th. So I would hope that they are also begging for our money for December. We have no idea why this is happening again. We had three good years and that’s what is perplexing – it’s happening again,” she lamented.
This newspaper reached out to Severin via email but up to press time there was no response to our query.
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