The nurses are hoping for a big increase

May 09, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Nurses have been assured that they will receive an increase in salaries before the end of the year… not before the end of the week or the end of the month… but before the end of the year which is seven months away.
The official who announced the decision did not state whether this increase is the same as the across-the-board increase in salaries which is given at year end to public servants or whether it will be in addition to that increase.
Nurses must therefore not get excited because the pattern has been to impose an average increases of 5% each year on public servants. The nurses therefore should demand that the promised increases should be in addition to the year-end increases which are given to all public servants.
Last year, the teachers were taught a bitter lesson. They settled their wages dispute with the government only to find that the increases in salaries which they negotiated was only marginally higher than that which was given to other public servants. They did not enjoy the significant “bump-up” in salaries which they had expected and which is necessary to motivate teachers to do better.
Teachers, like their now retired colleagues thirty years ago, are finding that some of their former students are now working for more money than them. This is humiliating to teachers. The wage debt which is owed to teachers should have been settled with a 100% increase in their salaries and then with smaller, single digit annual increases.
The nurses have to beware of falling into the same trap. They must not accept anything less than 25% interim increase and this must be without prejudice to the annual increases which they have come to expect.
The age debt owed to nurses must also be paid. Apart from increases nurses pay, nurses should be limited to working a maximum of five days per week.
It is strange that the government should be announcing that nurses will enjoy an increase in wages since there has been no notification that the government has invited or is involved in wages negotiations for nurses with the union representing workers.
The union has a collective bargaining agreement with the government and therefore negotiations have to take place with the union representing nurses before any announcement is made. There has been no indication that the union has agreed to any increase or has been involved in any discussions with the government or increased wages for nurses.
However, now that the government has announced wage increases, this should be taken by the union as a statement of intention to have negotiations. The union should therefore press for the negotiations to begin and it should negotiate increases for nurses separate from that of the other public servants.
The government has to address the high migration rates of nurses if they are to prevent the public health system from collapsing. They have reasons now to offer nurses substantial increases especially since many of them continue to leave for better opportunities in the Caribbean, North America and Europe.
Last October and November it was reported that 74 nurses planned to depart for the United Kingdom. More would have left since then.
At the rate at which they are leaving, Guyana may have to begin to import more nurses. The government has to offer large increases if they hope to retain nurses here.
Last year the Minister of Health said that Guyana needs 1,000 nurses. The only way to ensure that this need is met is to pay nurses better so that the new entrants to the profession will be more than those who are leaving.
One year ago, the Minister of Health also called for nursing to be restored to its former glory. Paying nurses far more than the annualized 5% average increases in salaries is one way to rebuild self-esteem and pride in the profession.

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