When Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. delivers his eighth and final State of the Territory Address Monday at the Legislature on St. Thomas, local labor groups plan to be outside demanding fair contracts, wage increases and safer working conditions for their members.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers represents approximately 40 security guards at U.S. Virgin Islands health care facilities who have long worked without a collective bargaining agreement or wage increases, IAM said in a statement Friday. The union said that “prolonged injustice” stems from the Office of Collective Bargaining and the Public Employee Relations Board failing to meet their legal obligations to negotiate contracts and resolve grievances.
“The IAM Union is calling on the governor and the Virgin Islands Legislature to do the right thing — fix the OCB and PERB, honor the law, respect collective bargaining rights, and deliver fair contracts and raises to the essential workers who keep our island moving,” IAM Southern Territory Special Rep. John Vigueras said in a statement. “This public action gives government leadership a clear opportunity to stand with their constituents at a pivotal moment for the future of the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Leontyne Jones, president of the American Federation of Teachers Local 1825, said her members will hold an “informational picket” to highlight health and safety issues at the territory’s aging public schools. Jones said members of the Educational Administrators Association and Seafarers International Union will be drawing attention to their own issues and that “they all have legitimate concerns.”
“We’ll have a whole lot of people out there who make a difference and show people that our unions are suffering,” she said. “The OCB needs to hire another lawyer. They have one lawyer dealing with … 30 contracts. So it’s ridiculous, and there’s no excuse.”
The territory’s chief negotiator, Joss Springette, has long advocated for an expansion or amendment to the Virgin Islands’ collective bargaining law, Act 4440, to allow the governor to authorize general wage increases while negotiations are pending. In a 2023 interview, she noted that the law was passed nearly half a century ago amid a very different union landscape.
The landscape changed again in June when the 36th Legislature unanimously approved raising the minimum salary for government employees to $35,000 per year amid a bitter, monthslong dispute over pay raises for top government officials. Bryan called the base pay increase an “unfunded mandate” which would impact salaries across the board — including for union employees.
In a September letter to Bryan, OCB and members of the governor’s financial team, the V.I. Police Benevolent Association said its officers were in a “chokehold” waiting for responses to contract terms covering salaries, overtime and raises while contending with unsafe working conditions and low morale.
“Once everyone who was making $27,000 is raised to $35,000,” Bryan told the Source at the time, “employees already at that level will expect to see an increase too, and supervisors above them will want their salaries adjusted as well. It doesn’t stop at the entry level — it ripples upward through the entire system.”
At the time, Bryan said his administration was still working to understand the full impact of the salary increase.
“Until we figure out how to absorb these costs — or the Legislature identifies funding to cover the rest of the employees — we can’t responsibly move forward,” he said
