‘Collective Bargaining: towards a dictatorship’

Dec 23, 2024 Letters

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Dear Editor,

On the V-Democracy Index Guyana is classified as an ‘electoral democracy’ verging upon an ‘electoral autocracy’.  This is largely because liberal democracy proscribes all processes, political competition, collective bargaining or otherwise, won by undemocratic/illiberal means such as cohesion and various forms of bribery and corruption.

It is based upon this general principle that the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) was barred from government for almost three decades and countries, some very economically prosperous, such as Singapore, Venezuela, Russia, etc., are all classified below Guyana as ‘electoral autocracies.’

Although somewhat patchily, Guyana has struggled to maintain a tradition of open and transparent collective bargaining negotiations. Article 147 (3) of Guyana’s Constitution states that ‘Neither an employer nor a trade union shall be deprived of the right to enter in collective bargaining’.  Other associated laws have followed, and governments have ratified most if not all of the relevant International Labour Organisation conventions.

Yet for over two decades, the PPP has been refusing to have open and transparent collective bargaining with public service workers unions. It has been using all manner of machinations to undermine and destroy them; refusing to administer the check off system through which members fees are paid, withdrawing funding for education and other activities, expanding the use of contracted, non-union workers, etc. And its annual unilateral pay increases have left public servants, who are mainly African Guyanese, relatively impoverished.

For example, in 2004 when the per capita GDP was US$860, the average annual salary of a teacher was 3.4 times GDP, namely US$2,924 per person. Today, an average annual teacher’s salary is about US$11,500 and the GNI (Gross National Income) in 2023 was about US$33,200, 3.4 times which is US$112,000! It does not matter how these numbers are spun, teachers are not being comparatively remunerated as well as they were two decades ago, and this is deliberate. Between 2020 and 2023, central government expenditure as a per cent of GDP declined from 28.4% to 24.6%. But current expenditure declined from 21.7% to 10.8%.

The wages and salaries of public sector workers declined from 6.3% to 3.1%.  What is most interesting is that expenditure for capital works, which mainly goes to Indian Guyanese who overwhelmingly support the PPP, has gone in the opposite direction. It was 6.7% in 2020 and 13.4 per cent in 2023! (Guyana: IMF December 2023 Article IV Consultation and Staff Report). I have argued numerous times that the above is because the PPP is seeking to establish ethnic/political dominance in Guyana and my contention can easily be scientifically defeated by the PPP government financing an independent ‘ethnic disparity analysis’ over its period in government.

Earlier this year, the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) took industrial action after refusing the usual government-imposed increases in renumeration. It requested open and transparent collective bargaining, which the government refused. The union resorted to the court who seized the issue and determined that collective bargaining was the legal pathway and organised a conciliation process that broke down. But without returning to the court to explain this and request a way forward, which appeared the next logical step, out of the blue the union leadership accepted a government offer that was not fundamentally different from the one that led to the strike. And now two of the GTU main officials/negotiators have been pilloried and suspended by the union for dereliction of duty!

The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) has also usually rejected the government’s annual unilateral wages imposition and unsuccessfully requested normal open and transparent collective bargaining. It has also had to face the brunt of the PPP’s government attack upon the unions. This is understandable for the union is strategically placed, mainly supported by African Guyanese, and historically the regime has falsely partly blamed the union and not the PPP’s communist intent and meanderings for its being kept out of office during the period of the global containment of communism.

Given this quarrelsome history, it was somewhat surprising to hear that, after what Stabroek News described as ‘secret negotiations’, a collective bargaining agreement was recently concluded with the government. What is also somewhat baffling is that usually in Guyana when union leaders complete a collective bargaining agreement, as with elected officials everywhere, self-interest makes them loud in praise of themselves. But since the completion of the present ’secret’ agreement, the leaders of the GPSU has been largely silent and it is the government that has been using the media to praise itself!

Employers should not be allowed to unilaterally set unionized workers’ salaries and transparent collective bargaining should also help to counter the possibility of unions becoming company unions controlled by the employers. In his ‘West on Trial’, Cheddi Jagan told a related story. “In 1945, I became the treasurer of a working-class organisation, the Man-Power Citizens Association (MPCA). Unfortunately, this did not continue for long. The union machinery was against me, and I was removed from office at the end of one year. Pressure was brought to bear upon me because I objected firstly, to high expense allowances from the fund of a poor union and secondly, to the tendency of the union leaders to collaborate with the sugar planters. Actually, the union had been already set on its course of becoming company dominated.”

Like most autocratic regimes, the PPP usually seeks to hoodwink the population with form not content, but properly conducted collective bargaining is a series of negotiations in which trade union leaders must continuously consult with their members and negotiating teams, even as they negotiate with the employers. Thus, union leaders are required to meet with the members and seek a clear understanding of the changes which they require in their contracts. Such meetings may demonstrate differences among the members on serious issues such as pay rates, working hours, safety, etc.  Importantly, the negotiators are expected to always keep their principals informed and seek their support in reaching acceptable settlements. At the end of the process, they should hold a general meeting to get workers to vote for the settlement they propose.  If this process of accountability is non-existent or inadequate, as apparently happened in the case of the GTU, the negotiators and the employer can pay the price.

Staying with the important difference between form and content, there is a point of view that since the USA is a democracy and has ‘secret bargaining’, Guyana could also have it! Context is important: America is a democracy and Guyana is an autocracy that flourishes on secrecy. And it is the unions that are more in favour of ‘secret’ negotiations because the lack of transparency in negotiations leads to the ‘routine awarding of inflated compensation and benefits packages that far exceed typical private-sector employment terms.’ Furthermore, what Guyana is now adopting as good the USA is rejecting as bad and undemocratic.  While only about half of US states at present have some form of transparency rules and open collective bargaining, this has increased from about 15% in 2012.

Interestingly, 2018 a Washington Policy Centre brief argues that Washington state has one of the strongest laws to promote open government and accountability, but government employee contracts that involve billions of dollars are usually negotiated in secret. ‘The public should be allowed to follow the process and hold government officials accountable for the spending decisions they make on taxpayers’ behalf. Similarly, union members would benefit from knowing exactly what proposals their union representatives are requesting and what proposals they are rejecting. In addition, open negotiations would help the public determine who is acting in good or bad faith.’ It does appear that contrary to PPP propagandists, Guyana is maintaining its trajectory towards dictatorship!

Sincerely,

Dr. Henry Jeffrey

(‘Collective Bargaining: towards a dictatorship’)

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• ‘electoral autocracy, ‘electoral democracy’, liberal democracy, People's Progressive Party, V-Democracy Index

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