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Akash Sama­roo

Af­ter sev­er­al hours of tense ne­go­ti­a­tions, the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) have reached an agree­ment on a ten per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers.

The deal is ex­pect­ed to cost the State ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3.8 bil­lion in back pay and an ad­di­tion­al $420 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly in re­cur­rent ex­pen­di­ture go­ing for­ward.