By Jeff Trotman
Over one hundred workers of the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) stayed away from their jobs yesterday as the protest against the government’s announced five percent increase for public servants escalated.
The decision to take strike action was reached at a meeting on Tuesday between Linden Branch representatives of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) and LHC workers and the action saw participation of workers of the health centres and two hospitals in Linden.
“So, as of yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon, the strike started,” Public Relations Officer Reycia Nedd said yesterday morning. The GPSU has been protesting
the wage increase since its announ-cement last month, while condemning the PPP/C administration over its continued practice of imposing increases outside of collective bargaining. The union, which says protest actions have commenced throughout the country to heighten awareness of the plight of workers, yesterday announced that it would start protest marches beginning tomorrow in the city.
Speaking with Stabroek News, Nedd said that while most of the workers stayed away from work, there were some who went to work but refused to work. “From my understanding what is supposed to happen is that those who strike would stay off the job and those, who are here are supposed to be working as a skeleton staff. But I don’t know what is really going on because we have some people, who have come to work and are not working. That is what we’re trying to sort out now – that those who are on strike should stay off because once you come to work, you are expected to work. It’s a hospital and there has to be a skeleton staff in place in case of any emergency to take care of patients,” she explained.
She said that she visited the hospital laboratory where about five persons had turned out to work and were working.
After speaking with Nedd, Stabroek News visited the GPSU Linden Branch Office, Bulletwood Street and was told that Coordinator of the GPSU Linden Branch Maurice Butters was at the Regional Democratic Office trying to encourage workers there to strike.
Marilyn Thomas was among several striking workers at the Branch Office and she told Stabroek News that while medical doctors were expected to continue working, the Matron at the Linden Hospital Complex had set out a roster for supervisory staff nurses to maintain a skeleton staff at the institution “but some people are going to work and not working.”
Thomas said that the majority of LHC workers, however, had stayed away from the institution. She said the striking workers are from the health centres as well as the two hospitals in Linden.
According to her, the strike is an escalation of the protest action that the workers have engaged in for the past three weeks.
The workers’ protest began with daily lunch hour picketing in front of the LHC followed by a protest march from the LHC to the Mackenzie Market where a rally was held with several speakers, including Regional Vice Chairman Byron Lewis and Mortimer Livan, First Vice President of the Guyana Public Service Union, who travelled from Georgetown to show solidarity with the protestors.
Thomas, who also addressed the rally, said yesterday that she is heartened by the unity the health workers have displayed so far. “I hope that this unity continues,” Thomas said. “The people in George-town are not working since Saturday and tomorrow [today] we’ll go to Georgetown and join them in protest,” she added.
She also pointed out that the LHC workers took their protest action to Georgetown last week Monday, Tuesday and Thursday where they picketed in front the Georgetown Hospital, the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service Ministry. She said the union has set up a register, which strikers can sign on a daily basis at the branch office and up to noon yesterday over eighty persons had signed their names. Thomas said that she knows for sure that more than one hundred persons were off the job.
She said the health workers were aggrieved at a number of other issues apart from the meagre five percent increase.
According to her, the Personnel Department is still cutting workers’ salaries when they go on maternity leave. “The Permanent Secretary says they should not cut the gratuity which is paid in lieu of pension,” Thomas said. “If you cut gratuity, you’re telling people not to get pregnant.”
She also said ancillary staffers at the LHC, including maids and attendants, are being denied their holiday benefit. Thomas explained that ancillary workers are not paid double when they work on holidays and are entitled to take a day off subsequently in lieu of the holiday pay but this is being refused by management.
Meanwhile, Butters said the contentious outstanding issues include concerns for the workers’ gratuity, non-payment of outstanding retroactive pay and workers being recorded absent when they report that they are ill.
He said the union has been trying to meet with the management of the LHC for over four months to discuss a slew of workers’ concerns but the management has refused to entertain any meeting.
Stressing that the workers will determine how long the strike will last, Butters said that at the meeting at which the workers overwhelmingly decided to take strike action it was highlighted that as a medical institution there was need for there to be at least a skeleton staff working at all times.
