Dear Editor,
I am responding to the letter signed by Nicola Berkley for the Management GPOC, which was published in SN of Sept 22, captioned ‘GPOC treats as priority…’
I daresay that the Post Office has found itself in a crisis and may need to refocus and get back to the basics.
Recall that when the political movement of the fifties emerged the GPTWU under the leadership of Andrew Jackson, encouraged its membership to engage in additional academic studies. The union pressed firstly for Guyanisation and then for closure of the ‘Post’ classification to allow ‘unclassified staff’ upward mobility in jobs then reserved for civil servants. While this was emerging, they also forced the Post Office to establish the Post Office Training School, first housed at Telephone House, staffed with a Coordinator and three full-time lecturers, assisted with outside lecturers like Ms Bone. Later the school moved permanently to the old Carmichael Street post office and operated from February to November yearly, training all staff. (Perhaps we should ask to rename it the George Doris Postal Training School when it becomes active again.)
This upsurge saw the then young postal primary school graduates as a group taking up the challenge and also taking correspondence courses leading to several obtaining GCE and other subjects. Some went on to the UG (night school) resulting in enhanced qualifications.
Because these now more qualified postal employees still had no means to move upwards, other agencies like the police, and new organisations like NIS, GNCB, Fisheries, Bank of Guyana, Telecoms, etc, found fertile ground to recruit staff for their own development. Internally there was the perpetual infighting with the PSU for the movement of postal staff into so-called operational positions. I recall one incident where we went on strike to get a Postmaster to act as Asst Supt Mails Branch, and no sooner had we ‘won’, when the PSU went on strike to get the position back. Another example: as the person assigned to the Monitor position I had the responsibility of clearing all mail including the waterfront of thousands of bags mail at a time (yes… we then got books by the hundreds, sometimes hiring other trucks to transport the mail.) However as an ‘unclassified’ employee I could not clear a “discrepancy bag,” and had to take the civil servant clerk to check and sign!
These issues among others led the GPTWU under the leadership of Selwyn Felix during the ’70s to increase the demand for closure of the ‘Post’ classification, and after much discussion, planning and agreement the closure came in the form of the Post Office Corporation. The GPOC went through several stages of managerial development, guided by the overriding concept of a low level input, labour intensive organization rooted in job training. It is a well known fact that postal training is a specialized field, and that no academic learning institution can yet fulfil that need. It is why some countries create postal training colleges, and why the Universal Postal Union and some countries grant scholarships. Several of our people benefited by going to Rugby in England, or India or Pakistan, etc. It is this same factor of the need for specialized training that caused the decision-makers to appoint a former Postal and Telegraph Clerk (PTC), who had also been a Postal Training Instructor and who had left the post to become a labour officer subsequently being promoted to Senior Labour Officer, as Asst PMG (in training) – not substantive!
During the first decade or so of the GPOC there was a concerted effort to change from administering a government department to managing a corporation. We had the Justice George Commission of Enquiry and its report; we had the Management Development exercise to identify staff strengths and weaknesses; we had a review of activity levels and a rationalisation exercise, resulting in a reduced establishment strength; we instituted delivery surveys to better manage the core business of delivery of mail; we developed a comprehensive integrated training programme using our training school, other local institutions like GTI, CLC, AEA, the ‘Bishop’ course and of course UG sponsorship; we developed the post code in discussing with GMI the GRO birth certificate matter. Several senior staff were sponsored for specialized UPU overseas training in areas like Train the Trainers, Postal Management, Imbalance Claims and Philately. We instituted meet the people tours, and postmasters’ seminars to disseminate and discuss policy matters. Guystac also did their universal job evaluation exercise, from which we obtained a new structure.
We had the usual ups and downs, and in critical management areas made changes to suit the emerging conditions. We ended up with an establishment of just over 600 persons managed by a top/middle tier management structure of:
1 PMG Level 13; 1 DPMG 12; 1 APMG 11; 1 Fin Mgr 11; 1 PIRM 9; 1 Postal Controller Plan & Stats 9; 3 Regional Controllers 9; 1 Asst RC 7; 3 Accountants 10; 1 Inspector of PO 8; 1 Asst IPO 7; 1 Inspector of Mails 7; 1 Training Officer 7; 1 Secty/Admin Asst 6; 1 Customer Relations Officer 6; 1 Stats Officer 8; 1 Philatelic Services Officer 8; 2 Supts of Mails/Parcels 8; 4 Chief Postmasters 8; 12 Snr Pms 7.
The PMG was, as specified in Act 13 of 1976, the Chief Executive Officer, reporting to the different political management structures, including Group Executive Chairmen, Vice Presidents, Supervisory Councils and oversight Boards. We followed the usual political diktats, including the Planning Ministry’s circular of February 2, 1982, and the instructions ‘not to take instructions from any Minister other than your own subject Minister.’
The second decade saw a furthering of those developments that followed political and managerial changes. Several of the management team had by then retired, resigned, or in a few cases, passed away. By then in the third decade, the new decision-makers also saw it fit to dispense with the services of those retired officers who had been retained by the previous management team in the areas of Postal Security/Inspection, and to pass on critical institutional memory/expertise to young and green employees.
Someone meanwhile decided to close the training school, dispense with the integrated training programme and operate training in an ad hoc manner. Delivery surveys became a thing of the past, and that expertise is nowadays nowhere to be seen. While our Caribbean postal organisations looked to Guyana to request assistance in developing their expertise and the Hamlets, Phillips, Nobles, Andersons, etc, helped them, we invited a developed country to journey here to give a rehashing of our issues and to give some of the same recommendations contained in the George Report, and even to provide false and inaccurate information and recommendations.
The Post Office is perhaps the only local institution where retired personnel are not welcomed back. Meanwhile corporate and private Guyana (and America and the Caribbean) snap up their expertise and we only have to look around to see the truth of that statement. When the union recently hosted a memorial for Selwyn, we saw no sign of the present management, but the collective retired institutional memory present totalled in excess of 300 years; their training included all the postal disciplines and all management areas. Surely some of them have indicated a willingness to help out in this crisis that is even reported in this weekend paper, and is reflected in the letter referred to above. But even if no one has offered their advice/services why is there no attempt to tap that pool?
It makes the union‘s efforts of the past meaningless, when for instance senior postmasters are placed to act as area managers (Regional Controllers) then revert back to make way for outsiders with no postal knowledge to come in and be appointed. It reminds me of my query as to the legal delivery standard which went unanswered as unknown, until I presented a copy of the relevant portion of the Interpretation and General Clauses Act to one of the implants. It seems to me that other criteria are being used to deal with the perceived inability of operational staff in achieving objectives, which will be a demotivating factor in terms of their performance. Padding the top structure and not replacing delivery staff will never solve the problems identified in the complaints. Not providing adequate training programmes, or not doing delivery surveys in the myriad of new housing schemes, while manipulating staff will not solve the problems. Paying foreign consultants or having the boards/chairmen hijack the decision-making function will not solve the customer and staff problems.
I wonder how Andrew Jackson, or Selwyn Felix, or Neville Griffith, or Tucker Jones, or J G Samuels or the other executive members sitting around that table over there will react? I know that some of us over here are flabbergasted that the situation has been allowed to degenerate to this level.
Somebody please listen and have them get back to the basics.
Yours faithfully,
L A Camacho
