Dear Editor,
Permit me to inform your readership of grave developmental erosion that is seeping into the Board of Directors of the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL). I hope to reach the new Chairman of the Trade Union Recognition Board (TURB) Dr. Nanda Gopaul, whose intervention, in particular, would be most welcomed.
NAACIE, one of the unions that is recognized to represent the junior staff of GPL is required to engage the Management of GPL in relation to workers’ rights, the upholding of the Collective Labour Agreement (CLA), the continuance/security of GPL’s business. In brief, the purpose of NAACIE is securing improvements in pay, benefits, working conditions, or social and political status through collective bargaining with GPL’s Management to the benefit of all employees under its stewardship.
Editor, the aforementioned responsibilities of NAACIE cannot happen if you have the General-Secretary (GS) of said Union selecting himself to sit on the Board of Directors of GPL without the consent of the Council of said Union. The GS’s self-proclaimed role as Chief Negotiator for workers’ rights is unilateral, ultra vires, in contravention of good trade union practices and capricious. While it is not unusual for a workers’ representative to sit on the Board of Directors, the GS’s acceptance of the post of Director on the Board of Directors of GPL is a clear conflict of interest as a member of the very Board that will through management sit at the bargaining table with the very Union of which the GS is the administrative Head. The GS is answerable to the Executive Council of NAACIE.
When the workers reach out to this council to seek clarity as to how this conflict of interest may be best resolved, it was shocking to find out that the council is fractionated in its response from being unaware to sleeping. You cannot be a Director for the Company on one hand and on the other hand petitioning that same Company with respect to the CLA. It’s utterly impossible to remain partial, to separate the two portfolios.
Workers are frustrated; they have lost confidence in the GS of NAACIE. The failures of the GS resulted in the failure of the negotiations and the staff who work assiduously on the front-lines to maintain the electric infrastructure and provide customer care to the 180 thousand plus customers, still have not received back pay, or increase in salary or a bonus over the last year.
It is my hope that this letter would send a stern warning to NAACIE to get its act together immediately as the staff at GPL is fed-up with the status quo.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address supplied)
