President Irfaan Ali and First Vice President of the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) Dawn Gardener met on Friday for an engagement of ways in which they can better the lives and welfare of public servants.
Declaring that it was not a bargaining meeting and describing the interaction as an engagement, Ali said they both shared and listened to each other’s views on how they can endeavour to resolve challenges public servants face.
“…There’s no outcome. It was an engagement in listening to each other, listening to views and endeavouring to work on all matters, and to see how we create an environment in which we can champion the cause of workers who we both believe in. Government believes in ensuring that our workers, those in public service, have the best possible welfare,” Ali said while speaking to Sunday Stabroek as he was exiting the 4th Anniversary celebration of the Buxton-Friendship Museum, Archives & Culture Centre in Buxton yesterday.
He said their discussion was not only centred around salaries but a comprehensive strategy to improve public servants’ lives.
In the wide ranging discussion, he said, the views were exchanged on the possibilities of workers being able to own their own homes, having access to better standards in terms of health education and support for their children going to school.
Questioned whether this discussion would have been in breach of the bargaining process as outlined by the International Labour Organisation, Ali responded in the negative.
“It was a conversation and that conversation can lead to parties presenting their position, and then we can move to an official structure…It was an open discussion…,” he said.
Last week Ali told the media that he had scheduled a meeting with the union’s representative, Gardener. The President had said he was not afraid to meet with stakeholders on matters they view as important to the development of the nation. The meeting comes following a scathing attack by the union just over a week ago on his two-year-old administration for ignoring collective bargaining for members of the GPSU.
The union had signalled that legal action over the matter was in the works.
In the past, PPP/C governments have made unilateral increases in public servants’ salaries by around 5% annually without collective bargaining with the GPSU and other unions.
Despite promises that it would restore collective bargaining, the APNU+AFC government of 2015 to 2020 also imposed unilateral increases.
Section 23(1) of the Trade Union Recognition Act of 1997 states “Where a trade union obtains a certificate of recognition for workers comprised in a bargaining unit in accordance with this Part, the employer shall recognize the union, and the union and the employer shall bargain in good faith and enter into negotiation with each other for the purpose of collective bargaining.”
Long-serving GPSU President Patrick Yarde recently said that with the rising cost of living and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, public servants continue to face financial burdens. “Amidst spiraling price increases, government has ignored its responsibilities to public servants while embarking on costly political excursions….It has also committed the public coffers to billions of dollars in grants, aid and other financial benefits for what appears to be carefully chosen segments of the population, while allowing larger masses of the population to suffer in anguish from the onslaught of the constantly rising prices,” he said.
Apart from offering a “miniscule” $25,000 cash grant in 2020 and a “paltry” award of a taxable 7% across-the-board increase a year after, Yarde said the government did nothing to alleviate the “pains and sufferings” of its workforce.
He further noted that the 2022 budget did not include any provisions for public servants neither does the recently tabled $44.7B supplementary budget.
“We have looked and it and looked at it again. I ain’t see anything about salary increases for public servants…that they went to Parliament for…..It is now the end of July 2022, twenty-four months after being sworn into office and seven months into a new financial year, without any movement towards meeting Government’s responsibilities and obligations under legally binding Collective Labour Agreements, Labour Laws, ILO conventions and workers’ rights enshrined in the constitution,” he added.
