Contending that certain employees of the Linden Mayor and Town Council (LMTC) are underpaid, Linden’s Town Clerk Lennox Gasper has said he is pushing to have the salaries of these workers increased.
During an interview with this publication on Tuesday, the Town Clerk spoke about some of the issues facing the council. He revealed that at the time when he was appointed to his position at the council, in November 2023, there were a number of employees being paid the minimum wage that was established for the year 2018.
“Now, let me say this to you. When I came on here at my appointment on the 9th of November, 2023, staff were earning, well, they were drawing 2018 minimum wage. Imagine working for 2018 money in 2023.”
On this point he noted that due to interventions made by the Council’s administration, the workers would have received a significant increase in wages.
“We gave them an increase, because we had actually received a letter from Government ordering that we give the six point [per cent] something increases. But we can’t give the 2023 increase, and we have 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. We couldn’t, so I said go back to the 2018. And we made a commitment that by June of that year, we would have moved from 2019 to 2021.”
Now, the Town Clerk said the goal is to ensure the employees’ salaries are competitive with 2024 rates. In fact, he explained that at the Council’s last statutory meeting, the issue of salary increases for Council staff was raised. However, this call was shut down by Linden Mayor Sharma Solomon, who contended that if Council staff receive further wage increases, Councillors should also be given the same privilege. But this move was labelled as an act of “selfishness” by the Town Clerk, who called out the Mayor for blocking the administration from improving workers’ wages.
“The Mayor said, if staff salary is going to be increased, he would like for the treasurer to look to see if they can increase Councillors’ stipend too. Now look at this, these people operating like vipers. Everything got to be selfish about you, these people working for next-to-nothing money. And now you putting a condition, if you’re going to increase their money, your money got to be increased too.”
The Town Clerk added, “So all that the Mayor is trying to do is to stain and malign my name, when in actuality, he is the one who is standing in the way of the development and the progress. He is the one who does not want to work with the Clerk.”
Nevertheless, Gasper explained that come 2025 he will continue to work towards improving Council workers’ pay.
“Ensure that these staff are adequately compensated for the work that they are doing, because I do see and foresee on having some challenge. They are already seeing it with the sanitation workers. Most of them have been leaving to go with Cevons, their pay is a bit better. We also having some challenges, as relates to our constabulary, where persons are also leaving for guard services that are paying better and we are having challenges replacing those persons, so our manpower is down.”
