INCREASES FOR PUBLIC SERVANTS HAVE BECOME A CHRISTMAS BONUS

Dec 03, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

It was always asking too much for anyone to hope that when it came to public service salaries, the Donald Ramotar administration would have done anything different from the Jagdeo administration. I will not go where people expect this line of argument to logically go, except to say that there is not much separating the Ramotar presidency from that of his predecessor.
When it comes to annual wage increases for public servants there are two permanent features that characterize the government’s approach. The first of these is that increases are being imposed on public servants without negotiations with the representative unions in the sector. The second is that the PPP has become a 5% government when it comes to public service salary increases. Today, I will briefly deal with the latter.
Each year almost without exception, the government offers a 5% increase to public servants. And it just so happens that the declared inflation for the previous year is almost invariably around 4%. This means that in real terms, the government is offering workers an almost negligible increase in salaries each year.
There are many persons, including influential economists, who question the degree to which the declared inflation rates effectively measure the increase in prices in the economy. The government has never sought to defuse the controversy over its inflation numbers by having an independent analysis of its inflation numbers. It should.
The workers, however, will tell you that the same basket of goods is costing them more each year. And therefore it can be concluded that year after year, instead of reducing the labour debt, the government is increasing this debt by reducing the real income of workers through an increase that, officially, barely compensates for the declared inflation rate which many believe is not reflective of the movement of prices in the economy.
In this context it is an insult for the salary increases offered this year to be described as a “freck”. It is an insult to the word “freck”. You cannot offer a child in this country a 5% increase each year on their pocket piece. They will look at you as if you are mad. A 5% increase is no “freck.” It is more like “freckery.”
The real income of workers is being eroded because the 5% that is offered each year cannot compensate for the increase in prices in the economy. Regardless of what the government states is the official rate of inflation, the realities on the ground are different. It is time for the inflation rate to be independently analyzed and it is time for the government to stop this double whammy of eye-pass that it is inflicting each year on public servants.
The annual salary increases are no longer about compensation for the labour of workers. It has never been, also, about trying to move towards a living wage. These increases are about trying to ensure that workers have a little small piece in their pockets – compliments of retroactive back pay – so as to spend for the Christmas. It is a Christmas bonus.
This is what the Jagdeo administration turned the annual salary increases of workers into. They turned it into a Christmas bonus. And to no one’s surprise – and perhaps in keeping with the spirit of the Season – the Donald Ramotar administration has continued the tradition.

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INCREASES FOR PUBLIC SERVANTS HAVE BECOME A CHRISTMAS BONUS

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