Public Servants will receive the 10% to 1% differentiated increase on their October salaries in spite of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) having rejected the offer.
Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Department, Reginald Brotherson told Stabroek News yesterday that based on a directive received, his department will be authorizing for October the payment of the government’s final offer retroactive to January 2016.
“This payment will be made without prejudice to whatever steps the union next chooses to take,” Brotherson said.
He made this statement hours after receiving a letter from the union in which he was informed that at a “General Council Meeting held on September 2, 2016 a unanimous decision was taken to reject the offer of 10% -1% differentiated approach proposed by the Government of Guyana.”
This letter which urged the government to “resume the negotiations within the spirit of what is just, consistent with its 2015 manifesto commitment and with due respect for the Union’s representation in pursuit of a living wage being paid as the basic pay for an employee of the Guyana Public Service” was one of three dispatched to Brotherson by the union yesterday.
It follows the public release of the union’s position as well as a public declaration by President David Granger that his government was prepared to make the award whether or not the union accepted the proposed “final offer.”
The president was asked on last week’s Public Interest television programme, if his government was prepared to make an arbitrary award of the proposed differentiated increase, to which he responded, “the award we proposed is as much as we can do as of the first of September and we intend to proceed with that.”
He said that though the government entered into negotiations in good faith, it had done everything that was possible and was now making an offer which it could afford. He further urged the union to continue to engage the negotiating team so that issues such as allowances and de-bunching which had not yet been addressed would be.
Breach of trust
The government’s decision to proceed with the award no matter the union’s position has been described as by veteran trade unionist Lincoln Lewis as a “breach of trust… and …evidence of bad faith negotiations.”
In a letter published in the Sunday Stabroek, Lewis, the General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) stated that “the outcome of any negotiation that is considered just is one where the results are agreed upon by the parties involved. The GPSU rejected the wage/salary offer. For the government to state that the position put forward to the union is final, and it will go ahead and implement it even if the union has not accepted same, is a breach of trust and can be described as evidence of bad faith negotiations.”
He added that “industrial relations are not about gut feelings. They are guided by a body of knowledge grounded in conventions, time-honoured principles, established rules and laws. Representatives of this government are advised of the importance of arming themselves with an understanding of these tenets or they will continue lurching from one crisis to another on matters pertaining to workers’ welfare. There are precedents in this society which can serve as guides as against the present big stick method being pursued.”
The regulations Lewis refers to guide the collective bargaining process, which prescribes that once talks between the two sides have broken down, the Labour Department of the Ministry of Social Protection would oversee conciliation talks.
The memorandum of agreement between the GPSU and the former Ministry of the Public Service for the avoidance and settlement of disputes specifically states that if the union and ministry represented by its PS are unable to settle any grievances the process shall proceed to stage V of the grievance process where either party within 14 days refers the matter to the Ministry of Labour for conciliation. Failing which the process proceeds to compulsory arbitration (Stage VI). The 1999 public service strike–the most serious in decades–was finally settled via the Armstrong Arbitration Tribunal.
Straight to arbitration
Henry Jeffrey, who was Labour Minister at the time of the strike, told Stabroek News on Saturday that the precedent set in 1999 means that the two bodies can move straight to arbitration as the Ministry of Social Protection would face a conflict of interest in facilitating conciliation.
“In this case the government would be both the arbitrator and employer, which creates a conflict of interest as the Labour Ministry is unlikely to facilitate an outcome that is not in the government’s interest so arbitration is almost certain,” he had said.
Yesterday, the union further informed Brotherson who leads the government negotiation team that they have accepted the draft Terms of Reference for a Tripartite Allowances Committee which was submitted by the Government’s negotiating team.
This aspect having been agreed to, the Union urges that the Tripartite Allowances Committee proceed with its mandate expeditiously.
The union has also called on the government to place the matter of debunching payments on the agenda of the next meeting.
Noting that the issues of debunching and payment of increments were resolved by the decision of the 1999 Armstrong Arbitration Tribunal Award the union states that the PPP/C government had over the last 18 years reneged on its commitment to honour the rulings of that tribunal resulting in public servants suffering economically.
Referring to this action as a display of “executive lawlessness and abuse of power”, the GPSU reminded the government that while in opposition they supported the payment of increments and made commitments that as a government they would resolve the matter.
Consequently, “the Union is urging that we expeditiously agree to a formula for debunching and for a process of reintroducing annual increments to be urgently addressed and implemented,” the letter stated.
