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Contract employment – a Govt. gift horse biting workers

Jan 25, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

During the Jagdeo presidency, contract employment was birthed in the public service on the premise that workers were not living long enough to inherit their gratuity. Contract employment had offered the working class the luxury to inherit their gratuity biannually as they live and work. This was an appealing idea since the unions were seen as enriching themselves with the workers’ contribution and not delivering anything of substance to workers’ cause.

Immediately after assisting the politicians to get rid of the colonial masters through industrial action, all governments since then saw the unions as their enemy and have sought to get rid of them. There have been rumours of union heads being thrown from a helicopter into a net to obtain their passivity as the government froze wages in the face of inflation. That kind of physical repression has now moved into the realm of covert action – like the offering of a government scholarship to union leaders. Presently, teachers are concerned that their annual uniform allowance has not moved from $8000 in 8 years – much less than their total union dues for a year – collective bargaining is dead. The surviving unions have to accept that.

Contract employment became the knight in shining armour for governments to shun the trade unions and the private sector was swift to follow suit. Now contract employment, the last hope that could have offered some sort of solace to the working class after the demise of trade unionism has taken a dangerous turn. Employers are asking workers to sign contracts without reading what they are signing up for and the main essence (gratuity) is being left out. A recent perusal of two contracts, one from the Ministry of Legal Affairs (MOLA) for a driver, and a labourer from the Eccles NDC, which comes under auspices of the Ministry of Local Government shows some damning differences where it really matters.

While the MOLA driver gets a month salary to go with his 14 days leave and a gratuity of 22 percent biannually on his earnings, the NDC labourer gets nothing for his annual leave and nothing as gratuity. This is a sad state of affairs, two ministries, one offering the full package to its employees and the other nothing. Is this the example the government wants the private sector to emulate? From all indications, they have already done so.

This is a tragedy. The NDC labourers, getting a measly $32,000 per fortnight to work in the most bacteria infested conditions (cleaning drains in which the residents’ septic effluent is being discharged) and not getting any remuneration (gratuity) for their services. This is gross discrimination, and it paints a picture of the government’s neglect of the poor working class – widening of the gap between the “have and the have nots”- putting the aspiration of One Guyana in jeopardy. This state of affairs is too big for the Ministry of Labour to rectify. A national consensus spearheaded by the President, Parliament, Opposition and the private sector is needed to enforce the binding principles of contract employment as it relates to workers remuneration (gratuity).

Yours respectfully,

Kranti Lall

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