Gems Projected Fee Increase Hampers Psa From Accepting Wage Increase

The Public Servants Association PSA says it will not accept any wage increase offered by the government until it addresses the exorbitant increase in fees for the Government Employees Medical Scheme GEMS.

This after the medical aid announced a 13.4 increase for next year.

Public Servants Association spokesperson, Claude Naiker says they are hoping to continue talks with the GEMS management in the new year.

There is a task team that is made up of organized labour, unions and members of the GEMS management. We have had several talks, we are hoping to continue with this in January. If everything else fails, then we have to engage the minister and obviously indicate our feelings and indicate to him very categorically that we will not accept any wage increase if this increase for GEMS actually goes through because whatever gains that we make on the wage side will get eroded by the GEMS increase.