The Grenada Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GCIC) has been appointed along with the Conference of Churches of Grenada (CCG) as the official negotiators to resolve a conflict between government and trade unions on a controversial 5% tax to be taken from the salaries of workers.

Informed sources told GRENADA that this was the most important decision reached at Wednesday’s meeting aimed at diffusing a threat by the Grenada Trades Union Council (GTUC) to engage in mass protest action if the Keith Mitchell government goes ahead with plans to implement the tax.

The chamber was already trying to broker a deal between the two sides for the past week. However, during Wednesday’s meeting, it was decided that the Church and to a lesser extent the Grenada Employers Federation (GEF) would be mandated to meet with both bodies to try and hammer out a solution to the problem.

Well-placed sources told this newspaper that the mediators blamed the Mitchell government for engaging in activities that tended to “heat up” the industrial relations climate in the country.

The Government Information Service (GIS), headed by Selwin Noel, a known political activist of the ruling New National Party (NNP) government, was blamed for putting out a number of paid advertisements that served “to add fuel to the fire”.

According to the source, the TUC took strong objection to a claim made in one of the paid government advertisements that the trade union movement was an arm of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

He said the TUC was not happy that money of taxpayers including its membership was being used to attack its leadership. The labour leaders demanded a retraction of the statement and an apology from the GIS for the statement trying to link its leadership with the Congress party.

The source said that GCIC requested the government delegation headed by Finance Minister Anthony Boatswain to direct the GIS to put a stop to these advertisements. The minister is said to have pleaded that he was not even aware of these advertisements.

Apart from Minister Boatswain, the government delegation included Labour Minister Claris Charles and Minister of Works, Clarice Modeste-Curwen.

The chamber and the church leaders had scheduled a meeting with the government negotiating team at 3.00 p.m (Wednesday) and a session for 6.00 p.m with the trade unions to try and bring both sides closer to an agreement.

Among the church leaders helping to broker the deal are Bishop Vincent Darius of the Catholic Church, Anglican Bishop, Leopold Friday, former Labour Commissioner, Robbie Robinson, and Osbert James, a member of CCG.

One of the proposals on the table is for government to announcer the controversial 5% levy in the budget to be delivered on January 20 but not to enforce it until the specific details are worked out among all affected parties in the country.

Minister Boatswain is said to have informed the meeting that if government fails to implement the levy the island stands to lose $15 million in aid from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF).