Dear Sir,

The Government’s “equity” argument for active public officers’ raises is a hollow “double-edged sword”.

The most egregious example is the treatment of the Government Employee Health Insurance (“GEHI”) premium increase. Current civil servants received a ten per cent catch-up increase and a refund of the $50 premium increase to ensure the new salary gains were not depleted. Meanwhile, retired public officers were forced to pay that same $50 from fixed pensions frozen since 2012.

Since 2012, retired public officers have watched their purchasing power vanish. Over the 2014-2024 period, public service retirees have effectively lost a cumulative 15.6 per cent in real purchasing power due to missed biennial adjustments that should have mirrored the CPI. Specifically, the missed opportunities in 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024 represent a decade of compounding financial erosion. To suggest that equity is being served while current civil servants receive retroactive salary corrections and retired public officers receive only an ad hoc, 10 per cent cost-of-sliving adjustment as a delayed promise is a fallacy.

The "shared sacrifice" of the 2014 furlough era has become a permanent penalty for retired public officers. We are not merely discussing numbers on a ledger; we are discussing the dignity of those on fixed incomes who cannot “work” to offset the rising cost of living. If the Government truly values equity, it must stop treating superannuation pension adjustments for retired public officers as an afterthought and start indexing them to the same standards of living applied to the current workforce.

Furthermore, retired public officers call upon the Bermuda Public Service Union, Bermuda Industrial Union, Bermuda Union of Teachers, The Bermuda Fire Association, and The Prison Officers Association to lobby more aggressively on behalf of their former members.

These public service retirees were the very people who built their unions’ structures, fought for the benefits currently enjoyed by active public servants and laid the groundwork for every success the five unions celebrate today.

To leave these pioneers members behind while securing gains for their unions’ current membership is a betrayal of the solidarity that unions are supposed to represent and uphold.

Justice for the public service must include those who built it.

EDWARD BALL Jr

On behalf of concerned retired public officers