Labelling government’s one-off bonus of $25,000 for public servants earning under $500,000 per month as meagre, the GPSU yesterday called on the government to resume unfinished negotiations for 2016.
In a statement at a press conference yesterday, the GPSU said the announcement last week by Finance Minister Winston Jordan that public servants earning less than $500,000 per month are to be paid a “one-off, tax-free bonus of $25,000.00” comes against the backdrop of continuing uncertainty over the status of unfinished wages and salaries negotiations between the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) and the Government of Guyana.
“Frankly, the Union finds the meagre ‘Christmas freck’ gesture – not least the Finance Minister’s quixotic and decidedly indelicate remark that the paltry sum will help `ease the journey to the good life’ to be both trite and insensitive.
“In the first instance the so-called “tax free bonus” bears a conspicuous resemblance to the kind of arbitrary periodic handout to which Public Servants have long been relegated by their employer and which epitomizes the accustomed lack of regard for Public Servants”, the GPSU said .
It added hat the arbitrariness of the decision raises ongoing questions about the administration’s stated commitment to respect collective bargaining.
“We have little doubt that the expectation behind this gesture is that – particularly at this time of the year – the poorly compensated Public Servants, will feel some misplaced sense of gratitude for the decidedly modest ‘small piece’ that has been tacked on to their salaries”, the union declared.
The GPSU said that it wished to make it clear that continuing periodic handouts to public servants in a manner that aims to relegate them to mendicants cannot be allowed to replace fair, honest and genuine collective bargaining.
The union said that it is its firm opinion that “such diversionary tactics should be replaced by a swift return to the negotiating table to resume the 2016 bilateral negotiations on the wages, salaries, allowances and representation improvement in other conditions for Public Servants.”
