On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the longest public service strike in Guyana’s history, the Public Service Union (GPSU) yesterday registered its dissatisfaction with the current state of industrial relations, including the continuing failure to respect collective bargaining in the negotiations of salaries.
According to GPSU President Patrick Yarde, 20 years after the 57-day strike of 1999, the union still struggles to have government adhere to legally binding agreements.
“With the change of government in 2015, they gave a commitment to restore collective bargaining but soon thereafter we were faced with the same modality of impositions,” Yarde told reporters at the GPSU’s headquarters in Georgetown yesterday.
He went on to note that since then, despite promises otherwise, collective bargaining is not being respected and other issues also persist. He, however, refuses to commit to engaging in any industrial action although several “ultimatums” to that effect have been sent to government agencies.