When solutions are not found to social problems they tend to recur from time to time in unexpected and sometimes destructive ways. The latest Venezuelan excursion in and extraction from our waters makes this point at the international level, and internally the repercussions of the quarrel between the public service unions and the government, which reached its apogee in a strike that lasted some 56 days in 1999, is again on the front burner!
Of course, solutions are not always easily found, and in such cases vigilance must be the watchword if the possible negative consequences are to be avoided. Yet, generally, if the intention is to foster development and national cohesion, it behooves us to persistently seek sensible solutions to conflicts when they arise.
In terms of the Venezuelan controversy, the context in which it is taking place is essentially anarchical and thus solutions are difficult to find. Here, what is required most of all is watchfulness and caution, i.e. a hardnosed foreign policy rooted in a more or less self-interested analysis of reality and not in ideological compatibility and camaraderie. After all, as Lord Palmerston said in an 1848 speech in the British Parliament, states have “no eternal allies or permanent enemies, only eternal interest.”
The government’s quarrel with the public servants is taking place in a context of long-established law/rules for the resolution of these kinds of disputes and national means of their enforcement. It is therefore easier to solve, so why the persistence of this dispute?
People tend not to remember that in 1999 there were two major industrial disputes running almost concurrently: one having to do with a dispute between the Ministry of Education and the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) and the other between the government and the unions representing public service workers: the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) and Federated Union of Government Employees (FUGE), and both ended on 30th August 1999.
Once negotiations failed, the former dispute went relatively quickly to arbitration and ended comparatively peacefully. In both of the disputes the law was clear as to how arbitration tribunals were to be chosen.
In the teachers’ case, the collective agreement gave the Minister of Labour the right to choose the chairperson of the three-person arbitration panel while the disputants were required to nominate one member each. In that instance, the Ministry of Labour chose Fr. Malcolm Rodrigues as chairperson and the Ministry of Education and the GTU chose Dr. Gobind Ganga and Mr. Norman Semple respectively to consider the teachers’ demand for a 20% increase for 1999. After meeting for two months, the panel awarded a 10% increase for the year 1999 for all positions from Ts 1 to Ts 5 and 12% for all positions from Ts 6 to Ts 19.
Although there were some mumblings in government circles about the “arbitrary” way in which the Ministry of Labour went about selecting the chairperson, the dispute ended so quietly that today it is all but forgotten (as these kind of events should be, except for the student of industrial relations).
The GPSU demand, first made in 1997, was for a 30% salary increase for 1998; 40% for 1999 and 50% for 2000. Negotiations got nowhere and arbitration, the obvious way to end this type of dispute, was not immediately grasped. The unions went on strike for 56 days and the entire issue ended in even more acrimony after the arbitration tribunal, chaired by Dr. Aubrey Armstrong, gave the workers 31.06% for 1999 and 26.66% for 2000.
In passing, I am usually given “credit” for choosing Dr. Armstrong to chair the arbitration tribunal, but that is untrue and simply could not be. The terms upon which the strike ended clearly stated that: “An arbitration tribunal will be appointed within one week of the signing of the terms of resumption. The tribunal shall consist of one member selected by the GOG, and one selected by the Unions and a Chairperson agreed upon by the GOG and the Unions.” That is precisely what took place and I was not the representative of the GOG. The government again chose Dr. Gobind Ganga, the GPSU chose Dr. Clive Thomas and together they agreed upon Dr. Aubrey Armstrong after rejecting several other persons.
After the Armstrong award, the political propaganda machinery went into overdrive. Jeffrey supposedly conspired with his PNC crony Armstrong to give a huge award but nothing could be further from the truth. In any case, Armstrong was hardly a crony of the PNC. He hurriedly left Guyana after a falling out with some powerful people in the PNC and Cheddi Jagan considered him as a possible prime ministerial candidate.
There are those, and I am one of them, who believe that the unexpectedly large awards given by the Armstrong tribunal are partly responsible for the development of the present impasse between the government and the PSU. The award helped to further isolate those in the PPP/C who favoured negotiations and arbitration and entrenched the view that Guyana is essentially an ethnic orientated society.
Of course, there were two examples to consider but the vehemence of the public service debacle drowned out the teachers’ experience, which demonstrated that once the normal industrial relations processes are followed in a timely manner and tempers are not allowed to flare and tensions build, industrial disputes can be settled reasonably.
It is obvious that after the public service strike of 1999 and particularly after the resignation of Ms. Janet Jagan, the regime took the decision to attempt to severely weaken, if not destroy, the GPSU. The regime’s refusal to have proper collective bargaining with public sector unions was the first major rejection of the ethos of Cheddi Jagan, but this kind of moral appeal to legacy is at best only soothing.
I have argued before that at the end of the day, if political parties or trade unions cannot appropriately represent their members and supporters, they are all but useless. In matters having to do with the state, a resort to law only makes sense when the law has sufficient moral force to gain the state’s compliance. This is not the case in Guyana and the GPSU has now come to realise that it must again embark upon strike action: take a stand or simply wither away.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
