The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) yesterday railed against the Donald Ramotar administration for ignoring its obligation to engage in negotiations of wages and salaries for public servants and announced moves to internationalise the situation just two months after threatening industrial action.
GPSU Vice-President Mortimer Livan told a press briefing yesterday at the union’s headquarters that the Government of Guyana continues to “dishonour” the legally binding collective bargaining agreement that exists with the union and continues to “trample” on the rights of the public servants.
“As long as the collective bargaining process, which is legally binding, is not being honoured, the right of the public service servants to collective bargaining is being trampled and the relevant provisions of the Trade Union Recognition Act of 1997, ILO Conventions 98, 151 and 154 and the Cotonou and Economic Partnership Agreements are being thwarted,” he said.
For over a decade, government has repeatedly imposed annual increases on public servants while sidelining the GPSU, which has been unable to arrest the situation.
Livan said yesterday that renewed attempts to initiate negotiations were repeatedly brushed aside by the Public Service Ministry (PSM).
As a result, he announced that the union was taking a number of steps to get the government to honour the collective bargaining process. He stated that they wrote the European Union (EU) Delegation in Guyana informing it that the government is failing to fulfil the provisions of the Cotonou and Economic Partnership Agreement between the region and the EU, and requested its immediate intervention. Copies of this letter, he added, were sent to the British High Commission-er, the Canadian High Commissioner and the United States Embassy. In addition, the union is getting ready to commence meetings with union members to alert them to the situation “and discussing a way forward.”
He further indicated their decision to write the World Federation of Trade Unions and the Inter-national Labour Organisa-tion (ILO) to inform them that the government is not honouring its collective bargaining obligations to the GPSU and public servants. He said they were also notifying the public of their distress.
“We are asking that collective bargaining be observed,” he said, while noting that the union has not met with the government since 2012.
He said the union had hoped for a 30% increase in salaries and wages in 2014 but instead the government had imposed a 5% increase.
He also said they are now bargaining for a 25% increase in 2015 as he highlighted that the basket of necessity, the union’s economic yard-stick for workers’ minimum wage, revealed that the minimum wage should be set at $88,000, given a model of a person’s basic necessities.
‘Dismal’
While the Government of Guyana has a noteworthy record of subscribing to the workers’ rights to collective bargaining, Livan said, its record since 2001 of entering into meaningful collective bargaining with the GPSU for the determination of increases in wages and salaries and other terms and conditions of public servants has been dismal.
He said the government has been arbitrarily imposing “across-the-board increases” in salaries and wages for public servants, in spite of strident and constant protests from the union.
Livan noted that a senior government minister had stated that the government was engaging with the union to introduce arrangements to restructure negotiations on salary increases but he said the claim was misleading.
He said there was no engagement between the Public Service Ministry and the union, “neither on the form of negotiations for salary increases nor on increases of salaries and wages, nor on setting of deadlines for the completion of the process of fixing wages and salaries for the nation’s public servants for 2014.”
He indicated further that the GPSU had written the ministry on June 6, 2014 requesting that the collective bargaining process commence but the ministry had replied to say that it was engaging the Finance Ministry on modalities regarding the issues of salaries negotiations for public servants.
The GPSU wrote the ministry again on September 11, 2014 requesting a meeting, he said, but the ministry responded that it was awaiting the response from the relevant authorities. “The responses of the PSM are clearly unsatisfactory and can no way be considered as a meaningful engagement between the government and the GPSU on negotiations for wages and salaries,” Livan said.
He stated that these were “empty promises” and added that the union had expressed its disappointment and dissatisfaction with the state of affairs to the President and to the Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry Hydar Ally.
He said it was the thirteenth such one-sided and “unlawful” imposition since 2001.
He highlighted that the year was coming to an end and to date the government has failed to engage the union to bargain for increases in wages and salaries for public service workers—in spite of a public promise made by President Ramotar.
“This was followed by assurances given in Parliament by a senior government Minister in April 2014 during the 2014 budget debate about the government’s intent to engage in collective bargaining with the GPSU in 2014,” he said.
“When the collective bargaining process is denied, stifled or paid lip service, workers are denied a key right to participate, through their representatives, in the determination of their terms and conditions of service…and further, the national and international laws, agreements and conventions on collective bargaining are flagrantly broken with impunity,” Livan said.
He stated that collective bargaining is recognised globally as a legal right of workers and an important tenet of labour relations and governance, with protections in international laws and conventions.
Therefore, he said, it placed a legal obligation on employers and the workers, through their bargaining representatives, to engage in discussions to agree on terms and conditions for workers, including wages and salaries and non-financial issues, such as leave and hours of work.
