The Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) is suggesting that the Commis-sion of Inquiry (CoI) into the public service encourage the government to begin negotiating wage increases using recent ministerial increases as a “barometer” for determining public sector pay packages.
As part of his nearly one-hour presentation on Thursday, General Secretary of the GTUC Lincoln Lewis noted that while the terms of reference of the CoI refers to wages and salaries, the commission needs to respect fundamental rights and freedoms. He explained that the rights afforded to workers under Article 147 of the Guyana Constitution and International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 98 call for wages and salary to be fixed through collective bargaining.
Therefore, on behalf of the GTUC, he suggested “that the commission recommends that the process of collective bargaining commence, and the recent increase to government ministers and parliamentarians be used as the barometer in arriving at a wage package for public sector employees.”
The new APNU+AFC government recently gazetted 50% increases for Cabinet ministers, despite Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman assuring the public in August that there would be no significant increases in government ministers’ salaries in the near future. The increases particularly stung since public servants only received a 5% increase in their pay packages, after being promised “significant increases” by the coalition government during its elections campaign.
In the face of widespread criticism over the size of the increases and the manner in which they were implemented, Trotman this week attempted to defend them, saying they were “fair” and “necessary” because they are intended to ensure parity between salaries paid to members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.
Nevertheless, the criticism has persisted.
However, the GTUC, which was once the umbrella body for all trade unions in Guyana, has not condemned the increases. Instead, Lewis has referred to the process through which they were decided as a “bad one.”
Speaking with reporters last week, he explained that the secrecy and the unapologetic position of the government on the implementation of the increases is what made the process a bad one.
At that press conference Lewis also reiterated his belief in “a wage-led economy,” while saying that “people must be paid appropriately and across the board at all strata.
On Thursday, he submitted to the CoI the union’s belief that the wages policy in the public sector must be revisited by way of introducing a comprehensive job evaluation, which will determine the content of the job, the remuneration it deserves, and put in place a system for paying increase based on performance.
Lewis also stressed that the issuing of contracts to workers outside of the conditions that exist in the public service must come to an end. “We cannot have too different conditions for performing the same job. Appointing of contract workers undermines tenure, commitment and the desire to make the public service a vocation. It also compromises the delivery of public service since persons, out of recognition that their employment is politically secured, feel beholden to the political elite,” he said.
It was recommended that contracts be used only for temporary jobs and that “any work that goes beyond three months has to be seen as permanent employment,” with employment terms and conditions consistent with what has been negotiated through collective bargaining and what exists in public service rules.
“Tenure is important and must not be lost sight of if we are to build a competent public service. The public service is akin to career and one’s development. It is not designed to be a hustle and it has been gradually converted to within the recent years,” he said.
Lewis added that “the act of introducing contract workers into the system is demoralising to those who have made a commitment to deliver public service. It is conventionally wrong to pay tenured workers $90, 000 to do a job and hire a contract to do the same job $500, 000 per month. It is demoralising and ought to be corrected.”
