After a vehement refusal of the government’s wages and salaries offer and a request for negotiations to be taken to conciliation, no date has been set and the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is silent.
Six weeks ago, GPSU Senior Vice President Mortimer Livan told Stabroek News that the union was willing to give the Labour Department two weeks to set the date for a conciliation meeting.
Attempts to source a comment from the union proved futile as its Industrial Relations Department refused to comment on the matter and its executive members, including President Patrick Yarde, did not return any of several calls placed to the secretariat.
Permanent Secretary of the Department of Public Service Reginald Brotherson, however, confirmed that the government negotiating team has not received a request to make themselves available for any meetings.
On September 23, the union’s executive council decided to inform Chief Labour Officer Charles Ogle, via letter, that a deadlock had been reached in negotiations, and to request conciliation as provided for in the agreement with government for the avoidance and settlement of disputes.
The agreement specifically states that if the union and ministry, represented by its Permanent Secretary, are unable to settle any grievances, the process shall proceed to the fifth stage 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.
In 1999, a crippling public service strike, which lasted almost two months, was finally settled via arbitration.
The letter to Ogle noted that the negotiation begun between GPSU and the government on June 22, 2016 in relation to increases in wages, salaries and allowances, and reached an impasse on Wednesday September 14, 2016, when government negotiators maintained that their offer, which runs counter to that proposed by the union, was a final position on wages and salaries.
As a consequence, the Executive Council of the GPSU formally requested that the Chief Labour, Occupational Safety and Health Officer conciliate in the matter while advising that consideration be given to an arrangement agreed to in addressing a similar situation in June, 1999.
After two months of negotiations with GPSU, the government’s negotiating team announced, on August 24, 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 raise to 25%, subsequently rejected the offer.
At the time of the rejection, Brotherson, who leads the government’s negotiating team, had said that they would continue negotiations on non-salary matters, such as allowances and de-bunching, without prejudice to the union’s decision on the wages offer.
Since that time public servants have been paid the differentiated increases, retroactive to January, 2016, and negotiations have seemingly stalled.
Brotherson explained that the two teams have not met since that meeting on September 14, though he maintains that government intends to reengage after it had completed research in relation to the union’s request on these matters.
