General Secretary of the Dominica Public Service Union (DPSU), Thomas Letang, stated that civil servants who retire or resign from public service must have their years of non-appointment factored into their gratuity payments. He made this statement against the background that the government is planning to appoint 130 civil servants into public offices.
Letang stated that his union will continue to mount pressure on the government to get them committed to calculating the number of years that public servants were not appointed, into the gratuity payable to them after their resignation or retirement from public service.
It is not something new that when you’re about to retire, or if you decide to resign from the service you make a request for your years of non-appointed period to be taken into consideration in calculating your gratuity. But if you want it to be from the month than you’re waiting to retire, we are going to try to impress on the government that since these people were not appointed through no fault of theirs, that there be a commitment that those years will be taken into consideration and placed in their files.
Thomas Letang: General Secretary of the Dominica Public Service Union (DPSU)
Letang expressed satisfaction that the DPSU remains steadfast in mounting pressures on the government on all conditions that affect public workers. He said the union remains committed to the welfare of civil servants and would not relent in that regard.
I am extremely happy with what the union has been doing, we have never rested on that call, we have given our commitment to the public officers that we will be pressing on for that and we have been doing it.
Thomas Letang: General Secretary of the Dominica Public Service Union (DPSU)
Furthermore, the civil service union executive urged the government to establish an emergency fund that public officers can access in situations where they are not capable of securing financial loans from banks. Since not every civil servant qualifies for a bank loan, or even desires one, the emergency fund can meet their exigencies until they are able to get back to their feet, Letang stated.
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