GPSU’s Press Release: The Imposition of 6.5% on the Employed Poor in the Guyana Public Sector

The emergence of Government’s team of spin-doctors and/or propagandists to wish away the problems of the employed poor in the Guyana Public Sector, would only convince themselves that they are doing enough to raise the peoples of Guyana out of the doldrums of poverty, for as Joseph Goebbels the German propagandist once said ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” So, in defense of Government’s imposition of increases on wages and salaries, there were the following bearers of tales and misrepresentations, viz.

· Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo, positing that collective bargaining with opposition aligned Trade Unions makes no sense, especially because demands are unreasonable.

· Public Service Minister Sonia Parag, whose take is that the increases must not be viewed in isolation from the menu of initiatives which have supported Guyanese throughout the year.

· Mr. Joel Bhagwandin, a Finance and Economic Analyst, who prefers short term subservience to professionalism, surmises that “critics of the 6.5 percent increase for public servants must examine the bigger picture.”

· The Private Sector Commission came out in support of Government’s action and lauded the measures for Graduate Teachers and miniscule bonuses for Public Servants.

These ignoble propagandists would do well to inform themselves, firstly of the requirements of the Laws of Guyana and secondly of the seemingly invisible plight of the working class of Guyana, with its consequential effects on the citizenry of the Country, as a whole. The two younger players Ms. Sonia Parag and Mr. Joel Bhagwandin ought to do some introspection on their future, if they intend to remain as workers in Guyana, where their very self-conjured beliefs may return to haunt them until death, as have been the cases of many pensioners and workers, who believed in or were condemned to the service of our Country. Others ran to greener pastures and are today the angels, who provide substantial remittances to give life to those condemned by uncaring politicians over time.

It is also these very insensitive politicians, who in their moments of need, have passed legislations in the national assembly and created authorities, to ensure that their remunerations and other benefits meet their needs, while at the same time increasing their lot by the miniscule improvements provided to the public workers. The public can well remember the urgent salary adjustments for the President, Ministers and Parliamentary Officers in 1992, subsequent legislation on the President’s superannuation benefits and the APNU/AFC 50 percent salary increases for ministerial posts and parliamentary officers undertaken in 2015. All this was undertaken while ignoring the plight of the nation’s workers and the needs of their families.

Even as Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo confessed unashamedly to knowingly breaking the Laws requiring Collective Bargaining as a basis of determining increases in wages and salaries, he spurned the peoples’ Constitutional rights to Freedom of Association when he spoke of opposition aligned Trade Unions as opposed to Government aligned Trade Unions, which he favours. Minister Sonia Parag on the other hand rightly pointed out that Government has “an obligation to take care of the welfare of the people”, but decidedly strayed away from the legal framework within which Government must consistently operate to fulfill those obligations.

Mr. Joel Bhagwandin, on the other hand, is so full of himself that he compiles numbers as proof of his Government’s stewardship, but neglects to include the unavoidable costs that were involved in some of the awards made and the pains the working class suffered to achieve the quoted numbers. He also neglected to tell the story that in the year 1993 there was an agreement between the PPP, GPSU and three other Unions where the PPP Government documented its recognition of the need to set up a task force to deal with the employed poor in Guyana, but while the process got started under the Presidency of Dr. Cheddie Jagan, it was scuttled after his death on March 6, 1997 and totally ignored during subsequent presidencies to date. The mathematically inclined Joel Bhagwandin, if he is truly a financial analyst, should also have been aware of the traumatic effects on cost of living of constant devaluations of the Guyana dollar, against its standard the United States Dollar, an exchange rate that approximates US$1=G$213. Again, he should have considered the impact of the exchange rate changes on the purchasing power of Guyanese workers, before penning his diatribe on the Government’s imposed 6.5 percent.

The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) therefore wishes to clear the air to the best of its ability.

· The GPSU is guided by Article 147 (3) of the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana; Section 23 (1) of the Trade Union Recognition Act 1997, International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention № 87 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, Convention № 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining and Convention № 151 on Labour Relations (Public Service) that were all ratified by the Parliament of Guyana and are in force, together with the Agreement for the Avoidance of Settlement of Disputes, between the Government of Guyana and the GPSU that is embodied in the Public Service Rules (1987). The blatant disregard for the legal requirements of the laws and other legal instruments, including the spirit of good industrial relations is abominable. The fact that the ignoble propagandists, referred to above, deliberately failed to highlight or decry the Government’s breaches in this regard, is evidence that they have all collaborated in perpetration of the executive lawlessness that has become the Government’s hallmark.

· The fact that most of the electorate also treat lightly with Government’s lack of legal compliance, leaves much to be desired, especially because the inevitable “trickle down” effects of such non-compliance would ultimately prove harmful to the populace. This has been evidenced over the last twenty-three (23) years of PPP/C governance from 1992 to 2015 and is now evident again, since resuming office in August 2020. The APNU/AFC Government over its five (5) year tenure was also culpable, as it followed the PPP/C example in relation to breaches of the Laws governing Collective Bargaining.

· The Governments of Guyana, over the years have overtly neglected the plight of the employed poor and shunned away from providing them with an acceptable minimum wage that would take care of their monthly commitments to their families, including savings for clothing, housing, travel and relaxation needs. Any census taken with respect to these family needs would prove the inability of families to properly meet those needs, even though some are propped up by overseas remittances, on which there is a growing dependency. There are a large number of Guyanese, who have never travelled to explore the beauty of their own Country, much less overseas. All these factors are based on affordability.

· An avoidable encounter between Government and unionized workers occurred in 1999, under the presidency of Mrs. Janet Jagan, and with Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo as Finance Minister. Her administration posited the view that Public Servants should only be afforded a three percent payout over a ten-year period. However, a post industrial action arbitration determined an affordable thirty-one point zero six percent (31.06%) increase for the year 1999, based on the December 31, 1998 wages, salaries and allowances, followed by a twenty-six point six six percent (26.66%) increase on the December 31, 1999 wages, salaries and allowances that were effective from January 1, 2000, in order to commence the rectification of paying a living wage, together with realistic monetary compensations. These and other negotiated increases that occurred prior to the 1999 encounter with Government set the tone that have created the bedrock on which the wages and salaries of Public Servants stand today. For the record, had it not been for the vigilance and tactical interventions of the GPSU at that time, the current earnings of Public Servants would have been less than half of what it is today.

· By agreeing to honour the outcomes of the Arbitration Tribunal 1999, the Government was bound by the award requiring the improvement of allowances by 31.06% in the year 1999 and 26.66% in the year 2000, the de-bunching of employees and payments of increments, with effect from January 1, 1999, together with payments to the Professional, Managerial and Technical personnel that would otherwise “bring them to within 10% of the Private Sector median eventually” before December 2000. None of these measures were implemented by Government to date, but instead the Vice-President embarked on a tirade of reprisals against the GPSU, doing everything to undermine the proper functioning of the Union. His actions resulted in the breach of Government’s legal obligations to engage in collective bargaining with the GPSU since the year 1999.

· The GPSU after consultation with its members and other stakeholders developed and submitted to Government two “baskets of necessities” in the years 2008 and 2013 giving the justifications for its salaries proposals and establishing the required minimum wage, as opposed to what the Government continued to impose on Public Servants. These were randomly ignored, even though not refuted in any way by Government. It is now surprising to hear the Vice-President use the word “unrealistic” in reference to the Union’s proposals, but never castigating the random improvements he and other politicians gifted themselves.

· The evasiveness of Government to engage the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) since the 1999 encounter with the Union through the collective bargaining process is very discomforting. Particularly because it was the people that elected Government, which having been foresworn to uphold the law, commits wanton breaches of the law in full public view and with no consequences. It is therefore clear to all and sundry that the institutions that were formulated to keep Government in check are either not working as they should, have been politically hijacked or is devoid of appropriate mechanisms to ensure good governance. It is ultimately the people that must decide the fate of rogue Governments.

· The increases being imposed in recent years are being made on grossly inadequate salaries that spanned the ages, without proper determination of what constituted a living wage, given factors such as the astronomical currency devaluations which consistently affects the price of goods and services and consequentially the cost of living.

· Even as Public Servants are made to suffer the indignity of starvation wages and high taxation, Government has allowed investors to plunder the patrimony of Guyana. One of these investors, EXXON MOBIL, is being spared US$2.841 billion in taxes to date to the detriment of Guyanese. While in opposition, this government decried the imbalances and is on record promising to renegotiate the unfavorable terms of that agreement. They have now lost the political will to keep that election promise.

· At the same time the Government is waiving billions in taxes from multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations, the total public debt to be repaid by Guyanese taxpayers have increased by 16.9% between the years 2021 and 2022 and now stands at US$3.9 billion due to loans for infrastructure and social services. Mismanagement of resources and loss of revenues through lopsided deals with multinationals, excessive borrowing, along with the low priority given to the plight of the working class and pensioners are partially the reasons a paltry G$4,875 (equivalent to US$22.67) per month that was imposed on the monthly salary of persons earning the minimum wage in this currently touted “fastest growing economy in the world.”

· It is small wonder that President Mohamed Irfaan Ali dared not to countenance the reasons for the high migration of skilled nursing professionals to Great Britain, but instead accused that Country of taking them. Migration impacts the very professional core of Guyana and has adversely increased with the coming of the PPP to Government, even though their propagandists would have us believe that this slowed since the Burnham era. It is well known that more Guyanese live outside our borders than within. At this rate Guyana will not have the means and will to defend its rich patrimony and may need to capitulate to the special interest of foreign countries to do so. The Government of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana must, at all times, respect the legal rights of workers especially at a time it is calling for national unity against existential threats.

The Guyana Public Service Union is once more demanding that the Government of Guyana confirm to its legal obligations under the Constitution and Laws of Guyana by engaging in collective bargaining with the GPSU for all outstanding matters from the year 2020 to date.