Minister of Finance Winston Jordan yesterday defended the government’s “final offer” on wage hikes for public servants, while saying that a larger increase would be unsustainable. “Every increase we make must be sustained for the next year and the next year… sustained payments that have implications for allowances and pensions have to come from growth in revenues that can be sustained,” Jordan said.
Government has been locked in negotiations with the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) for two months beginning on June 22nd, 2016. On August 24th, the government’s negotiating team announced that its final offer to the union was differentiated wage increases for public servants ranging from 10% at the lowest scale to 1% at the highest.
The union, which had adjusted its initial demand of a 40% across the board rise to 25%, subsequently rejected the offer. It has, however, not yet made a request for the stages of the dispute resolution process to be engaged.
Despite this rejection, government public servants will received the differentiated increase, inclusive of payment retroactive to January, as part of their October salaries.
Yesterday, Jordan said that his government has even made improvements to the system of retroactive payment.
“It used to be paid from January 1, based on salary from December 31 of the previous year. So if you were not on the payroll at December 31, you would not have enjoyed the benefit of any salary increase. If you came on August 31, of this year you will enjoy the salary increase,” he said before reiterating that though it is recognised that public servants need salary increases at the level being asked for by the union, that can only happen as the “cake grows larger and larger and larger.”
