Reducing one’s labour costs is the objective

Jul 11, 2013 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
The 42 percent increase in the wages of security personnel which was recently foisted upon security companies by the Government of Guyana is now a done deal. Many in the security industry were up in arms for what they called the capricious manner in which the increase was introduced, and recounted that a 40 percent increase was introduced in a similar fashion last year.
Others expressed the view that they suspected that the timing of the increase was highly influenced by political motives, and reluctantly prepared themselves for the remaining 18 percent increase in the not too distant future.
However one looks at the situation, the events which led to the wage increase exist in a number of developing countries, and in many instances were addressed by means similar to those employed by the government.
On one hand, the government laments the fact that security guards are at the bottom of the employment food chain. On the other hand, security employers say their industry is a highly competitive and labour-intensive one that is highly sensitive to price shifts, and express dissatisfaction that the government did not hold prior consultations with the security industry’s trade association, Guyana Association of Private Security Organisations (GAPSO).
From a casual observation, one thing becomes crystal clear: GAPSO lacks a unified strategic approach to deal with the government, which results from the different persuasions held by individual members on the issue. In the past, many members who had the financial wherewithal to do so have taken to honouring the increase even before and without any prior consultation with GAPSO’s membership. Perhaps they felt this was a good way to flex their financial muscles and kill off their competitors over time.
But when the experiences of other jurisdictions are brought to bear, one finds that the wages and salaries of security personnel in middle income countries have usually followed the wage increase trajectory of other classes of workers over time, which has resulted in the security industry becoming less labour-intensive and tended to lead to some degree of job loss.
As always, four measures were employed to keep security budgets within manageable proportions, namely: trained managers, skilled supervisors, better trained guards and the introduction of value added technological solutions.
The objective is to reduce one’s labour costs by about fifteen to twenty percent.

Clairmont Featherstone

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