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Court case looms over City Hall refusal to place long-standing workers on fixed establishment
City Workers have been in dialogue with the GLU and Council over their retirement benefits
Kaieteur News – A lawsuit is likely to be brought against the Georgetown municipality over an alleged refusal by the administration of the city to place long-standing employees on the Fixed Establishment arrangement of City Hall.
The employees said they are at risk of losing their retirement benefits. Many of the employees began working with the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) since they were teenagers and are now over forty. Despite their long years of service, they now face retirement with little to no prospects of receiving a pension. As such, the workers have described the situation as deeply unfair. Elton Williams, 42 one of the affected employees told this newspaper that the matter has been dragging on since 2006.
“I am a heavy-duty operator working with the council for 20 years and I know of a lot of workers like me who council has refused to place on the fixed establishment because they don’t want to pay our pension,” he said. The city worker explained that he and the other workers are represented by the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) led by Carvil Duncan, in the discussions with the municipality. However, the Council has been adamant that in order for the workers to be placed on the Fixed Establishment, a worker must be 45-years or younger, in order to receive pension from the age of 55.
Williams explained that “The matter had reached arbitration in 2006, and there was an agreement that the workers should be placed on fixed establishment but the Council never did that. Now, we are here 20 years later facing the same problems and the workers are tired because we feel as though are interests are being overlooked. It’s like 100 persons who stand to lose their pension.”
He believes that the Council wants to avoid placing the workers on the fixed arrangement in accordance with the arbitration agreement; because this would mean they have to remit all the monies they have been paying to the pension fund for the past 20 years…So they had been going around the bush with it.”
Williams said the GLU has also not given the concerned workers any assurance that the matter will be resolved. “We have been waiting on the Union or the Council to give us some definite answers and they ain’t saying nothing. So, we have started to talk to lawyers on this because we are not getting anywhere with this.” Under the fixed establishment, it allows workers of the City Council to be able to claim their pension when they retire at 55 years old; they are entitled to non-contributory pension and gratuity on retirement …they must serve at least 10 years to be eligible for pension and gratuity. This newspaper understands that under the unfixed establishment, men retire at age 65 and women at 60. Additionally, this arrangement requires persons are paid contributory pension scheme benefit. Council contributes 5 % and employees 5 % of their basic monthly salary towards the scheme.
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