KHMHWU and Hospital Authority Back at Negotiation Table

There’s movement once again at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, where the Workers Union is back at the negotiation table. This comes after hospital management declared a trade dispute over ongoing pension talks. According to Health Minister Kevin Bernard, both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance were present at a key meeting held on Monday. The union walked away with a counter proposal in hand, and they’d promised to respond within the next two weeks. Minister Bernard gave us the latest update.

 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health

“Now the whole issue is those years that laps between 2001 and 2017 in terms of what benefits were lost for that employee, some of them already retired. So yes, I do agree that there needs to be some compensation but that is between the authority and the union. The government is the intermediary in all of this. KHMH is a statutory body. We only regulate the functions of KHMH. The authority has its own mandate. And I am happy that we have seen where cool heads have been able to sit down and negotiate. I know the union wrote a counter proposal. The authority felt it had to go to labor, because there were industrial actions taken hat had to be looked at. The ministry of labor had to step in. They are at the stage where negotiations are taking place. They made a counter proposal to what was being offered by the negotiation team, and I am hoping that within two weeks when they come back, because I am told that at the meeting last week, because I know they had a meeting on Monday where the union said they will take back the proposal that the negotiating team, which involves members from the ministry of finance, the financial secretary is part of the negotiating team, our ministry is part of the negotiating team, the union and the ministry of health. I am told they are going to meet with their membership and come back within two weeks with a response.”