More than two weeks after the report on the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the Public Service was submitted to President David Granger, the government is still to begin wage negotiations with workers’ unions.
Senior Vice-President of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) Mortimer Livan told Stabroek News that while the union is ready to begin negotiations, it has not received an invitation from the government despite having written to Permanent Secretary of the Department of Public Service, Reginald Brotherson, requesting one.
When questioned further, Livan noted that this request had been made before the completion of the CoI and that the union has not reached out to the government since the report’s release as it is “still studying the report.”
“We will be calling a special executive meeting to discuss the contents of the CoI report after which we will reach out the public service department again,” he said. Asked to state when this meeting would occur, Livan stressed that it would be “soon”
“We are presently planning for our anniversary celebration next week after which we will be more free to move forward,” he explained.
The report of the Public Service CoI chronicles the findings of a three-person commission, which was mandated to inquire into, report on, and make recommendations on the role, functions, recruitment process, remuneration and conditions of service for public servants.
Chair of the commission Professor Harold Lutchman along with commissioners Sandra Jones and Samuel Goolsarran were sworn-in in August of last year as commissioners to fulfil the commission’s mandate. After months of testimony and written submissions, the commission completed its work in February.
Since that time, the report has been highly-anticipated as the government had indicated that it would only finalise wage negotiations with the various public service unions after the report had been received. When he received the report, the president explained that before the negotiations can be completed, the Cabinet and the various unions will be given an opportunity to study the report, after which it would be submitted to the National Assembly and made public. The submission occurred last Tuesday, May 24.
It was also expected that the ministries of Social Protection and Finance would immediately engage the relevant unions in negotiations. This has not happened.
The 155-page report includes 89 recommendations, inclusive of a call for a new final mechanism of a Public Service Wages and Salaries Commission, which would be required to make recommendations to the National Assembly within a set timeframe. This commission is proposed as means to resolve any impasse arrived at in the attempts to settle disputes in wages and salaries.
It also serves as one of several changes called for by the CoI as a means to restructure the way in which public servants are employed and paid.
The commission has also called for a two-phase organisational restructuring to be undertaken. The first phase, it recommended, should rationalise the status of pensionable and contract workers and “de-bunch” employees in the salary structure. The report argues that the unilateral imposition of annual across-the-board increases in wages and salaries has resulted in a serious distortion if not chaos of the wages and salary arrangements.
This chaos is represented by “massive bunching of salaries, destruction of pay differentials within the salary grades, the abandonment of an effective performance appraisal system, merit increments and performance based pay increases.”
The bunching of salaries is particularly credited with creating “disenchantment among long-service employees” as the remuneration of persons who have acquired years of service are closely aligned with new recruits coming into the Public Service.
Further, despite rising costs, there has been no comparable increases in the various allowances in over two decades. The report calls for this matter to be subject to a process of regular review at agreed intervals.
The second phase of the organisational restructuring process is recommended to be executed by way of a “thoroughly conducted job evaluation study.”
According to the report, the public service has a diverse workforce of approximately 14,466 employees, inclusive of 4,471 contracted employees spread across 1,037 different job titles classified in five categories: Administrative, Senior Technical, Other Technical and Craft Skilled, Clerical and Office Support and Semi-Skilled operatives and Unskilled.
The report notes that job classifications presently cut across all pay grades, with the classification of Administrative and Senior Technical alarmingly starting from GS2 and continuing to GS4-GS14. “A job classification system cannot be used for positions which do not match in terms of their duties and responsibilities. Instead, it is used to group positions that have similar duties and responsibilities, require same and similar qualification, experience and training as relevant,” the report argues.
Consequently, it recommends an adjusted job structure with “parameters intended to illustrate what a properly designed Job Classification system should represent.” Also recommended is that the “‘degree of overlap be significantly reduced between all grades so as to avoid double and triple overlap in Grades, allowing for people in one grade being paid the same as, or more than, people in Grades two or more steps higher.”
