GPSU increases Demands On government

THE GUYANA PUBLIC SERVICE UNION (GPSU) THIS WEEK DOUBLED ITS
DEMANDS on the 7-month Irfaan Ali government with a call for hikes in wages and salaries for
public sector employees.
The labour body is already locked in a weeks-long tussle with the administration to move Mr.
Rudy Small, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) over
derogatory comments about nurses there in a taped interview with the news outfit
www.aroundtheregions.com
GPSU is backing daily protests by LHC nurses to replace the ‘loose-lip’ CEO who, the Health
Ministry was forced to move from posts at Leonora Hospital in Essequibo Islands/West
Demerara (Region Three) then Diamond Diagnostic Centre, Demerara/Mahaica, (Region Four)
for similar belittling comments about nurses.
Health Ministry’s Permanent Secretary (PS), Mr. Malcolm Watkins, in a letter, notified Small of
his removal from LHC, but Minister, Dr Frank Anthony, cancelled that decision less than 24-
hours later, to the chagrin of public sector workers, prompting the Upper Demerara/Berbice
(Region Ten) nurses to intensify their protest actions.
Earlier this week, the outraged workers took their grievances to the Minister’s Lot 1 Brickdam,
Georgetown office waving placards and chanting slogans, vowing to keep up the pressure until
Small is permanently replaced.
Later in the week, GPSU added hikes in wages and salaries to the beef they have with the
Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) coalition government, which, in the past, skirted
negotiations with bargaining bodies in preference for impositions of salary increases.
GPSU President Mr. Patrick Yarde told reporters the union by letter to Public Service Ministry
(PSM) Permanent Secretary (PS) Ms. Soyinka Grogan called for the two sides “to commence
outstanding negotiations of wages, salaries and allowances for 2020 and 2021.”

The letter, Yarde said was also sent to President Ali; Prime Minister, Mr. Mark Phillips; Finance
Minister, Dr Ashni Singh, and Public Service Minister, Ms. Savitri Sonia Parag.
“The Union had since the 1 st  September 2020 submitted proposals to the Government and in the
only meeting held on the 4 th  November 2020 between Union representatives and the Government
delegation led by the Minister of Public Service Ms. Parag the Union was informed by the
Minister that she had no mandate to discuss the matter of wages, salaries and allowances with the
GPSU. The Guyana Public Service Union subsequently submitted on February 3 rd , 2021
extensive proposals to be considered for inclusion in the 2021 Budget,” Yarde revealed.

Yarde feels snubbed by the government and complained that the administration’s current stance
on the wages, salaries and benefits for public sector workers betrays pre and post elections
commitments Ali and his team promised.

“At this stage we would wish to state emphatically one of the duties of the employer (the
government) is to ensure that the worker’s self-esteem and dignity are always protected. No full-
time worker, whether in the public or private sector, should be forced to live in poverty as
experienced in the public service of Guyana,” Yarde stated.

He said “wages that doomed the worker to poverty, deprives the employer of a motivated worker
and correspondently the quality of service which the employer expects and the consuming public
deserves. Poverty robs the worker and his family of their self-esteem, right to dignity and a
decent life. These deficiencies are root causes of undesirable developments in society and any
enlightened government should ensure that such undesirable social occurrence do not occur,” he
argued.

The GPSU top official referred to a ‘basket of goods’ the bargaining body put together some 13
years ago they believe were necessary since then to provide the average person with the basic
needs of food, shelter, transportation, among others necessities. Yarde complained that the
minimum wage which was calculated for workers from that more-than-a-decade-old exercise is
still not being paid currently by the Guyanese government.

This fact emboldened him to refresh the union’s demands for public servants’ minimum wage to
also be a living wage.

The David Granger A Partnership for National Unity, Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC)
government last gave workers a pay raise in January 2019. Afterwards, its Finance Minister, Mr.
Winston Jordan grouched about an absence of “fiscal space” for further increases while the
government held on to power until it was voted out in March 2020.
Yarde reminded that state employees “have gone through the entire 2020 faced with the
challenges of the infectious corona virus and increases in the cost of living. Additionally, they
have been subjected to a variety of other encounters with no considerations of relief being given
to the hardships they experienced, nor difficult economic circumstances they endured. Even
though during this period there were increases in revenue in the government coffers. This was
revealed in the Estimates of Current and Capital Revenue and Expenditure 2021. The revenue
referred to above, is distinct and separate from revenue received from the proceeds of oil,” Yarde
contended.

The GPSU proposed the government slash income taxes on public sector workers and raise
company taxes calculated at a flat rate of 25 percent when workers pay 28 percent, and even
higher taxes on all earnings above the government’s stipulated threshold.

“The GPSU also submitted in its budget proposals for 2021 that the tax threshold should be one
hundred and twenty thousand dollars ($120,000.00). Here I must mention particularly frontline
workers who are at risk, life threatening, in the hospitals, airports, seaports and at locations with
similar exposures were subjected to these encounters with insensitive responses to their
conscientiousness in discharging their duties. The GPSU would be pursuing that the government
pay a risk allowance with effect from at least March 2020,” the Union boss said.

“It must be noted that the Union has also sought the intervention of His Excellency, President Ali
in a letter dated March 16 th , 2021 and thanks him in advance for his involvement and support,”
Yarde told reporters.