Almost half-way into the year, the David Granger administration is yet to engage the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) on wages talks and as the frustrations of workers rise, the union said it is significantly worried by “the absence of dialogue.”
Speaking with Stabroek News, members of the GPSU’s executive council shared their bewilderment at the lack of movement on the part of the administration to begin the collective bargaining process despite making several public statements about its importance.
Executive Council member Maurice Butters, speaking on behalf of the public service workers in Linden related that he is being asked everyday about the status of negotiations. “In Linden there is a lot of expectations. Every day I’m being asked the question: ‘When will negotiations start?’ They announced that they were waiting on the commission of inquiry, now when we have the report, negotiations have still not started,” he said.
Referencing the headway the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) has reportedly made in its negotiations, Butters pointed out that “they started by negotiating non-wage issues and now they are moving on to the wage issues. There are so many things that could’ve been negotiated: allowances, the situation with the cleaners, the matter with the reintroduction of the agency fees. These are things that could’ve been decided and signed off on. The people of Linden had great expectations but they are becoming disappointed.”
Ram Mangru, speaking on behalf of workers from the Corentyne, reported the same high level of expectation which he said was bolstered by the government’s campaign promises.
“The President went on the TV station and made a commitment that when he got in office, he would fulfil his promise of 20% across-the-board increase. When the question was posed about the union, he said that he will re-introduce the agency shop agreement because he felt it was a right. When asked about the negotiations last year, he said in the first week of June he will set up a committee to start negotiation with the union. We are ending June again one year after and we are still waiting,” Mangru lamented.
He added that though the President later declared that he had established a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the public service and was waiting on the report to begin negotiations, this did not happen.
“The report was submitted and in the first instance rather than to come out and say something specific about the report, you hear the President is saying that no increase across the board but people will be rewarded according to their performance. Workers start asking, ‘Hey what is going on? What is the government saying? What the union doing?’ Our position is that the government did not communicate with the union what they will do or not do,” Mangru said.
He added that the expectations of the people were high but though he was keeping his fingers crossed, he does not see this government committing to negotiations and completing them before December this year. “We will have an imposition which they will claim is being put in place until negotiations are completed,” Mangru predicted.
Region Five representative Janice Bowen stated that “the union is already in position to have this negotiation commence but we can do nothing if the government does not follow their part of the bargain.
“The government has committed themselves to restart collective bargaining but there has not been any robust interest from the government in actually having this process take place. This is very worrying to our workers.”
The reps indicated that the union is less than impressed with the report compiled by the CoI. 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. 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 begin wage negotiations with the various public service unions after the report was received. When he received the report, Granger explained that before the negotiations can be completed, Cabinet and the various unions will be given an opportunity to study the report after which time it would be submitted to the National Assembly and made public.
It was also expected that the ministries of Social Protection and Finance would immediately engage the relevant unions in negotiations. This has not happened.
According to GPSU President Patrick Yarde, the report is insensitive to the role of the union as a stakeholder in public policymaking and it seemingly seeks to limit the way the union can be involved as a national stakeholder. So far, it seems the government only respects the union’s right to be involved in collective bargaining, he said, adding that the report has mentioned the union’s membership on the Public Service Commission as representing a possible conflict of interest which he branded as totally unfair and ridiculous.
GPSU First Vice President Mortimer Livan explained that the union makes every effort to select representatives who are honest and display integrity so to associate these individuals with “bias” is unfair.
Further, Yarde stressed that the report gave the impression that the commissioners lack the conceptualization of what was the intention of the union in its pursuit of the appellate tribunal which they do not mention in the report at all.
“They made no mention of the PSU representation from the appellate tribunal. This is a manifestation of our professionalism and dignity. This tribunal reviews the decisions of the commission. We felt there should be an enabling environment of people who disagree with the commission to appeal its decisions. …This union was responsible for the formation of the public service appellate tribunal,” Yarde declared
