A week after President Irfaan Ali announced plans for wages and salary hikes for public servants, The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) has criticised his failure to commit to legally required negotiations with the body.
“There has been no compliance to commence negotiations for the increases in wages, salaries and allowances for Public Servants for the years 2020 and 2021,” the union said in a release on Monday, while lamenting that it has been more than a year since the government has refused to meet and commence the negotiations with the GPSU, the workers’ representative, even though the cost of living has increased massively.
The statement was a response to the announcement by Ali that the government would be providing public servants a retroactive salary increase even as he failed to acknowledge several correspondence from the union.
Speaking at a press conference on August 2, Ali avoided questions requesting information on the government’s negotiations with the union and expressed a preference for speaking directly with public servants and teachers.
The union has, however, reminded that not only does the Constitution of Guyana and several laws, including the Labour Amendment Act and the Trade Union Recognition Act of 1997, dictate the legal manner in which the Government of Guyana should negotiate, but that there is a legally binding Agreement for the Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes, which outlines the procedures that both government of Guyana and GPSU must follow.
It noted that the current government had campaign-ed on a commitment to increase wages and salaries by 50 per cent but contended that since assuming office it has neither addressed the matter nor even given it urgent attention.
“The President boasted of his government’s first-year successes, but forgot to give the workers kudos for these successes, given that workers, not the politicians in government, were the engines of implementation… there could be no successes without the workers. Mr. President, it is the dedicated, committed and underpaid Public Servants that contributed these successes, even though your representative team are vacillating on the future of these outstanding workers,” they contended.
The union declared that governments must understand that they are not above the law and should be prepared to operate with dignity and respect for the rule of law by setting examples that all should follow.
According to the union, successive PPP/C administrations have been deceptive and evasive while sidelining the workers and their representative, the GPSU.
“they have repeatedly appropriated funds in parliament to improve the earnings of public servants without utilizing the mechanisms provided in the laws and binding agreements, a conduct and practice openly recognized by workers and their representative union,” the union reminded, adding that the government has also chosen to engage in worker’s oppression via the new COVID-19 measures.
Even as the Ministers of Health and Labour indicate that the COVID-19 vaccines are not mandatory, the government conspires to take away the workers right to choose by denying access to necessary services.
“Recent advisories to workers and the public indicate that unvaccinated persons would not be granted entry into the Ministries, unless an expensive precondition is met. This manipulative precondition strikes at the core of the peoples’ “wallet,” which of course would cause them to yield to Government’s demands for vaccination. The reincarnation of oppression is once again being imposed upon the people, taking away their fundamental rights as upheld by the Constitution. In this grand scheme, the COVID-19 vaccination programme becomes the tool through which unyielding workers would be denied the opportunity of earning or providing food for their families, access to public services, recreation and even shelter, since this draconian measure has been designed to make the unyielding penniless,” GPSU concluded.
