The air traffic controllers’ strike

Feb 05, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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I stand corrected. I was misled into believing that air traffic controllers were poorly paid.
Things have changed since the days of the PNC. Air traffic controllers are now being paid handsomely considering the volume of air traffic that exists in Guyana. Their salaries range from $155,000 to $310,000 per month. Some of them are therefore working for more than the President of Guyana.
I will now encourage some of those bright young men and women coming out of our school system with “A” levels to consider careers as air traffic controllers. Once they meet the requirements and are employed they will start at an attractive salary.
There are many young school leavers who are complaining about not obtaining jobs. Perhaps they are not looking in the right places; perhaps the authorities need to advertise to those academic high-flyers just what opportunities are available.
Perhaps the Civil Aviation Authority should go into the school system and inform students about the job possibilities because I am sure no parent will discourage a child interested in a job in aviation from taking up employment as an air traffic controller, and especially considering the relatively good salary available.
I hope that the strike that is taking place is now called off. I hope that the controllers return to work and engage in a mechanism to resolve their grievance. I have already suggested a mechanism to deal with the problem. If the air traffic controllers are considered an essential service, they should not go on strike. However, for all such workers there should be administrative tribunals to adjudicate on their grouses.
In the present impasse, the workers are not demanding salary increases. They are saying that they are owed outstanding monies because, as I understand it, they feel they have an entitlement to the salary increases granted to traditional public servants.
Their contention is that they went over from the public service on conditions no less favourable than what existed and thus they should enjoy the same, if not greater, increases than those offered to traditional public servants.
This is one of the most absurd arguments that I have ever heard. If this is the basis on which the air traffic controllers are holding out, I would urge them to crawl back immediately to their desks because there is no way that any court or tribunal would agree with such an interpretation. “Conditions no less favourable” simply means that upon taking up employment in the Civil Aviation Authority, the workers’ salaries and other benefits should not be less than what they enjoyed previously. It does not imply that they have a reasonable expectation to enjoy the future salary increases paid within the public service.
If however the workers felt that they ought to have enjoyed these benefits and considering that they are an essential service, then why did they not seek judicial redress instead of proceeding on strike?
I hope that good sense prevails and that the situation is quickly resolved. There is serious economic disruption taking place as a result of the strike, and this needs to be ended. At the same time, the government cannot be held to ransom for monies which they feel were never approved.
I am now fully in support of the position taken by Minister Robeson Benn. The workers should return to their desks. I would however still urge that an administrative tribunal be established to look into the legality of the case of the air traffic controllers.
I am not asking whether they deserve more. Inflation over the past three years has decimated real incomes. I am simply urging that a tribunal be established to determine whether any monies are owed to the workers.
If the tribunal finds that the workers are owed outstanding sums, the workers should be paid. If on the other hand it is found that the workers were not owed any money, they should be fired immediately.
There should be no reservations about doing the latter if the need arises.  If there is a breach of the contract of employment, those in breach should suffer the consequences. There should be no sympathy in this matter if the tribunal rules against the workers.
I am not worried where new controllers will be found. We live in a globalised world and Guyana is only now coming to grips with the reality that we do not need to build local capacity skills in order to have such skills available locally.
As we have seen in the health sector, persons are being flown in from countries with cheap labour to provide kidney transplant services. We do not have the local capability but we are providing the service. With the sort of salaries that are being paid to air traffic controllers, we can find more than twenty-five persons in India and elsewhere who would be willing to come and work in Guyana for salaries ranging from $155,000 to $310,000.

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