Dear Editor,
It has always bothered me how governments tend to become most stingy when it comes to paying workers a living wage. Here in Guyana, from Burnham and Jagan to Jagdeo-Ramotar and now Granger, their governments have come up with all kinds of excuses why their workers should not be paid more. From the 1960s to the present, government workers always seem to have to beg government for better wages and consequently have had to take industrial action to force government’s hand.
The final offer to Public Service workers is obscene, especially coming from a government that gave its senior Cabinet ministers a 50% increase just a year ago. To begin with, the wages of these workers are already extremely low, even by Caribbean standards; they do not earn a living wage by any stretch of the imagination. Here are workers who have to keep government going being treated as if they do not have a right to life.
Public servants in Guyana have never recovered from the IMF conditionalities started by the Hoyte government 30 years ago. Since then their wages have always lagged very far behind the cost of living in Guyana. The problem has now become a systemic one that needs aggressive government intervention. It is a matter of the human right to life as workers are expected to pay for the bare essentials of life with their wages. It is also a matter of social equality as most of these workers in the public service come from relatively poor backgrounds. When you keep their wages depressed, you are contributing to the reproduction of poverty.
This government came to power with the slogan “A good life for all” but based on this recent wage offer, it seems as if the “all” does not include public service workers. What good life can anyone enjoy with the kind of wages public servants earn? Look at the cost of rent, food, transportation, clothing and other essentials and tell me if the current wages can suffice?
Who are public servants? As I already pointed out, they are mostly poor people. A large percentage of them are women who often have to take care of their children by themselves. Most of them are from one ethnic group. And very importantly, most of them voted for the government that is now depressing their wages. Everything about that scenario is wrong.
Government has a moral and political duty to offer the workers much more than the current offer. The union hints that it would settle for 20%. That is not adequate, but it would represent a decent start. Yes, we are not a rich country, but the little revenue we have must be fairly and justly distributed. Look at the tens of millions we are forking out for bonds we do not need, stadiums we could do without and contracts to big shots who do shoddy work to name a few extravagances. We didn’t agonise to give our leaders 50% increases.
This government has to put in effect the vision articulated in its manifesto. The offer to the public servants is most inconsistent with what is in that manifesto. The PPP is gone—while we must from time to time draw comparisons between them and the current government, the latter has to ultimately be evaluated against its own promises. As Dr. King would have said—“Be true to what you put on paper.”
Yours faithfully,
David Hinds
