If Govt. can bail out Guysuco, and raise parliamentarians’ salaries, it can pay workers higher, livable wages now

Aug 26, 2018 Letters

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Dear Editor,

On August 14, 2018 I published a letter highlighting: (I) the coalition government (GOG) increased ministers and parliamentarians’ salaries by 50%, while teachers and other government employees’ salaries remained miserably meager. This has triggered a teachers’ strike. (II) GOG’s refusal to add the word “labor” to the Ministry of Social Protection (MOSP), to reflect the ministry’s full lawful mandate, and other intransigencies have ruptured its relationship with labor, and (III) Minister Keith Scott has not demonstrated the requisite competence.
In response, MOSP fired off a press statement deeming my criticism “less than amusing, somewhat impish and founded on puerility.” This undignified, petty diatribe is shocking. As a government agency, MOSP should be able to refute criticism of flawed policies with civility, and without reducing itself to such irresponsible, juvenile vitriol. MOSP should therefore foster sagacious, mature and refined discourse.
In its attempt to lecture me about its “labour management relations,” the ministry demonstrated astonishing a lack of knowledge of basic industrial relations and labor protocols. It claimed that it cannot comment on the current impasse between GOG and the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), because the issue is “sub judice.” Nonsense! Obviously GOG and GTU are currently in “mediation.” A sub judice matter is one under consideration by a judicial arbitration body or court of law. GOG and GTU are in no such judicial process. It does not inspire much confidence that the ministry tasked with managing the nation’s industrial relations seems so alien to international labor processes.
The ministry boasts that the coalition has increased the public sector minimum wage by 26%; moving it from $202 to $255 per hour, or from US .96 cents to US$1.20 per hour. How does this compare with the rest of the Caribbean? Minimum Barbados, for example, is US $3.60 an hour. Hence, Guyana’s minimum wage is still slave wage. GOG has failed to adumbrate a plan to bring wages on par with the rest of the region. Public sector employees know that the previous PPP regime deliberately suppressed their wages to exact political revenge. They do not expect the new coalition to work miracles in three years, but at least they deserve to hear GOG’s vision for higher wages.
Teachers in Guyana are among the lowest paid in the Caribbean. According to the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), the average trained secondary school teacher in Barbados earns US $2,014.00 or GYD $420,908,583.00 monthly. Conversely, according to the Guyana Teaching Service Commission, the average trained secondary school teacher (TS 3 Scale) earns GYD $96,875.00 or US $464.00 per month. Teachers cannot adequately meet living expenses and maintain their families on US $464.00 a month. They deserve a pay raise.
GTU is demanding 40% across-the-board increase for teachers for 2016; 45% increase for 2017 and 50% for 2018, 2019 and 2020; essentially a 235% pay increase by 2020. This is irresponsible and unrealistic. This will drain the treasury and damage our economy. Intractability by GTU would erode public support. GOG has offered a lump sum of GYD $700 million for salary increases and a lump sum of GYD $200 million for debunching for 2018. GTU has demanded that these payments be retroactive. GOG said that it does not have the resources to facilitate this demand. Hence, there is an impasse and threat of a strike. GTU cannot get everything it wants! It is inimical to the interest of teachers for it to reject every GOG offer. Its demand for retroactivity seems unreasonable. Collective bargaining is about compromise. A good compromise is a GOG offer of a lump sum of GYD $1 billion for 2018, 2019 and 2020. This nation would see this as reasonable.
President David Granger and the Minister of Education have expressed empathy for the plight of teachers. The President emphasized that his administration wants to improve salaries and avoid a confrontation with teachers. GOG must, however, match words with actions. I understand the government must govern in the interest of all Guyanese. But I also recognize the political reality that the coalition could not have been elected without the votes of teachers and other government workers. Elections must have consequences. If GOG can find $32 billion to bail out failing Guysuco and money to increase ministers and other parliamentarians pay by a 50%, then it surely can find monies to pay government workers higher, livable wages now.
The MOSP statement listed priorities on its policy agenda, which are laudable goals. However, it failed to mention reforming the nation’s labor laws and regulatory framework to prevent benefactors of the oil and gas industry from skirting collective bargaining rights and infringing on workers’ rights. It failed to mention a strategy for institutional strengthening to enforce its regulatory charter. Most important, it also failed to mention a strategy to address the atrocity of domestic violence (DV) and related murders. It has been unacceptably silent, while women are slaughtered daily as a consequence of DV. These failures demonstrate potential inadequacies in MOSP’s policy on labor and human services; two cardinal issues of currency.

MOSP said it is “more concerned with cardinal issues, rather than the parochial contention concerning the exclusion or inclusion of the word Labour in the ministry’s name.” This insult to labour demonstrates an appalling misunderstanding of the issue. Labour believes that the relegation of the ministry of labour to a department within MOSP and subsequent intransigencies have diminished the ministry’s labour management mandate. Therefore, its request to add the word “labour” to the ministry’s name is to give permanent resonance to its labour mission. Hence, how does adding the word “labour” to a minister’s title or ministry’s name harm GOG? GOG’s uncompromising position is not only destructive to healthy industrial relations, but it can have a deleterious effect on the coalition if workers in return ask in 2020, why should voting for the coalition be of importance to them?
I’m not unsympathetic to coalition government, but contend that if the government truly understands the plight of our overworked and underpaid public sector employees, then its actions must match its rhetoric. Its intransigence and antagonistic approach to labour is bad politics. The coalition must nurture a mature, synergistic relationship with public sector employees – its core constituency. This will lead to a more motivated and productive public service and an enthused political constituency.
Rickford Burke

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