News

Union claims Housing Authority not complying with court orders

February 18, 2019 4:36 pm

The Fiji Bank and Finance Sector Employees Union has raised concerns claiming the Housing Authority of Fiji is not complying with the court orders.

National Secretary, Sailesh Naidu says the Union and the Housing Authority consented to an order before the Arbitration Court last December to implement the new salary structure as per the recommendation of the Job Evaluation Exercise carried out by an independent consultant.

He says the increases and payments were supposed to be backdated to April 1st 2018.

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Naidu says the Authority has failed to comply with the Orders for the last three months and are saying they are waiting for approval from the Ministry of Public Enterprise.

“We don’t have such agreement with them that they have to comply with any approval from anywhere whether it’s the board or the Ministry. That is not part of the agreement, that is not part of the orders of the Court and there is no statutory requirement by the Housing Authority to seek such approvals.”

Close to one hundred and fifty employees of the Housing Authority will benefit if the new salary structure comes into effect.

Around ten staff walked out of the office last Friday during their lunch break to protest against the non-compliance by the Housing Authority.

Housing Authority’s Legal Advisor, Salimoni Karusi earlier told FBC News that they are working with the Ministry of Public Enterprise in trying to resolve the staff grievances.