The Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) is ex­press­ing deep dis­ap­point­ment and frus­tra­tion af­ter MTS es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers, who were an­tic­i­pat­ing wage ne­go­ti­a­tions start­ing at ten per cent as promised in the Gov­ern­ment’s stat­ed “work­ers’ agen­da”, were in­stead pre­sent­ed with a two per cent of­fer for the 2016–2019 bar­gain­ing pe­ri­od.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said they are be­ing pun­ished for re­fus­ing to sign on to the coali­tion of in­ter­est, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of sidelin­ing its mem­bers de­spite re­peat­ed­ly promis­ing that wage ne­go­ti­a­tions would be­gin at ten per cent for state sec­tor work­ers.

EPA pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son said the pro­pos­al not on­ly con­tra­dict­ed pub­lic com­mit­ments made by se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials but al­so sent a clear mes­sage that MTS of­fi­cers were be­ing treat­ed as “less than” com­pared to oth­er state-sec­tor work­ers.