However, they are being treated by the corporation as new employees, an occurrence which has irked the unions representing the workers.
President of the Guyana Postal and Telecommunications Workers Union (GPTWU) Harold Shepherd said yesterday that 54 of the fired workers had participated in the training exercises and that they had all been rehired. They are now employed as postal apprentices. Shepherd, however, said that these workers were hired with effect from January and that the corporation’s management had completely ignored the previous years of service of these employees. According to him, this was an illegal act by the corporation and the union planned to challenge it.
The union and the corporation management are currently engaged in conciliation talks with Chief Labour Officer Yoganand Persaud, who is serving as the facilitator. The most recent meeting was held on Thursday and the next meeting is set for Monday.
Shepherd said the union is still calling for the reinstatement of all the terminated staffers. According to him, the process done to rehire the staffers was questionable and he said that the corporation seemed to be covering up some sinister motive. He claimed that the training was “cosmetic” in nature since it consisted of a mere few hours of teaching followed by a test. Shepherd argued that since the process was not thorough it would have failed to serve the true purpose of training these employees.
The union’s position is that all the fired staffers should be rehired and then a comprehensive training programme conducted, Shepherd said. This training should last about two to three weeks and should be conducted by experienced retired postmasters, the union president opined.
Meanwhile, Shepherd sought to dispute the arguments of the corporation’s management that it had exceeded its budgetary allocation for wages during 2009 by $10 million and said certain actions indicated otherwise. According to him, if the company was in such dire financial straits it would not have chosen nor could it have afforded to rehire persons so quickly.
Shepherd further argued that the failure of the corporation to pay severance to the fired employees was an infringement of the Collective Labour Agreement between the two entities.
On December 31, all casual workers employed at the GPOC received letters of termination. Last Monday Chairman of the Board of Directors of the GPOC Bishop Juan Edghill said the move was necessary to regulate the employment of casuals at the establishment.
The exact number of vacancies at the corporation was to be determined and these were to be advertised. Edghill said the fired workers were free to apply to fill these vacancies. He also emphasised that the decision to terminate all employees was to ensure no discrimination in the exercise.
The decision, however, angered the fired workers who staged picketing exercises in front of the Post Office Corporation and the Ethnic Relations Commission in Peter Rose Street, calling for the resignation of Edghill.
