The National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Commercial Employees (NAACIE) and the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) yesterday held a meeting to discuss the terms of the arbitration, invoked to bring an end to a four-day workers’ strike.
NAACIE General Secretary Kenneth Joseph said the two sides met yesterday and will be exchanging briefs by March 20. He said yesterday’s meeting set the modalities for the arbitration process.
The matter was referred to Minister of Labour Dr Nanda K Gopaul after the two sides failed to reach an agreement and the minister used his powers under the law to invoke the labour act to bring the strike to an end. The arbitration award will be final and binding, Joseph said.
He pointed out that while GPL was saying that the agreement between the company and the union had expired, the union was strongly of the view that GPL was in breach of that agreement and had been in breach of it since 2007.
Stabroek News understands that both the company and the union received letters from Gopaul, informing them that he had in fact invoked arbitration and asking NAACIE to call off the strike. The letters identified Justice Prem Persaud, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Guyana Dr Gobind Ganga and former Clerical and Commercial Workers Union (CCWU) Secretary General Grantley Culbard as members of the Arbitration Tribunal.
As reported in this newspaper, since September 19, 2012, GPL and NAACIE have been engaged in wage talks for the roughly 700 NAACIE members working at the company. NAACIE initially demanded a 25% across-the-board increase, annual performance incentives of 3% to 11% as well as increases on all allowances ranging from 28% to 100%. However, it eventually decreased its demand to an 8% increase. Joseph said the 8% increase was in keeping with a 2001 agreement signed by the two entities, giving NAACIE’s members an automatic annual and performance increment.
The company made a counter offer of a 5% increase, which was refused by the union and as a result the workers had initiated strike action.
