Pres­i­dent of the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union (AWU), Michael Pren­tice, says he is look­ing for­ward to up­com­ing dis­cus­sions with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dr Daryl Din­di­al as ne­go­ti­a­tions over out­stand­ing wage agree­ments con­tin­ue.

Pren­tice’s com­ments yes­ter­day come a day af­ter Dr Din­di­al con­firmed that a pro­posed wage set­tle­ment val­ued at $2.6 bil­lion was sub­mit­ted to the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW). The pro­pos­al, which spans a 12-year pe­ri­od, com­bines cash and non-cash ben­e­fits in an ef­fort to ease the State’s fis­cal bur­den. Ac­cord­ing to Din­di­al, the of­fer car­ries a re­cur­rent an­nu­al cost of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $250 mil­lion, with fis­cal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and pay­ment flex­i­bil­i­ty cen­tral to the ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Pren­tice said the AWU re­mains fo­cused on im­ple­ment­ing agree­ments al­ready con­clud­ed.