Jamaica Public Service Company customers who lost power due to industrial action by workers should have had their electricity restored by yesterday afternoon, the company said.

It was quick to point out, however, that this was dependent on whether the workers on the afternoon shift reported for work as scheduled.

In a release from the company's communications director, Winsome Callum, the power company said normalcy at its plant was slowly being restored after the industrial action taken by workers was called off later in the day. "All of the company's customer service facilities are now fully operational. However, the restoration of power to affected customers is being done on a phased basis," the release said.

Workers at the power company went on strike yesterday morning by picketing outside the company's offices and not turning up for work. This lead to a shutdown of power supply to some customers, as no workers were at the plant to man the operations. Customers were also barred from entering some customer service locations that were blocked to prevent entry.

Protest action

The workers took unexpected industrial action to protest against the delayed implementation of the results of a job evaluation and compensation review exercise.

The issue has been high on the agenda of the company and the unions representing workers since April this year, when a reconstituted oversight committee began working towards the implementation of the results of the exercise. However, the lack of consensus on some elements of the formula to be used to calculate payments to employees has delayed the process.

The oversight committee will meet next Thursday, November 29, to further fine-tune the formula and the proposed format of the implementation of the results. The meeting was previously set for today, but had to be cancelled as key committee members were unavailable.