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Bermuda Premier offers to take pay cut
Bermuda Premier., Paula Cox
CMC – Premier Paula Cox has offered to take a pay cut in exchange for a new pay deal for civil servants, a union leader has said.
Government has asked workers to take an 8 percent pay cut, as Bermuda battles to get out of a recession which has seen the national debt balloon to more than US$ 1 billion.
But the deal also includes a freeze of public workers’ pension contributions for a year which means they would still take home the same pay.
The Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) is ready to make a counter-proposal, BIU president Chris Furbert told reporters, but he would not elaborate.
He also said Cox, who is also Finance Minister, had said she was prepared to take a pay cut.
Furbert said: “The Premier said she was prepared to look at a cut in her salary, at that point in time, she couldn’t speak on behalf of her cabinet.”
The deal, which would save government around US$ 31 million and allow workers to keep the same pay, was put to the union by Cox, who earns US$ 224,000 a year, at a meeting on Friday.
