The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) feels the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government could afford to hisse workers more but opts to be “stingy.” In a statement the party blasts the government for the increase making known it will have little to no material impact on the economic well-being of the lower and mid-level workers.
This year workers and pensioners receive a 10 per cent increase; and next year an eight per cent. The increase, President Irfaan Ali announced, arose from engagement with the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU). The Union is yet to issue a statement on the matter.
At the same time the WPA notes that “An objective examination of the packages, taking into consideration all the attendant factors, reveals that workers at the lower and mid-levels of the wage scale would not see much change in their ability to mitigate the crippling effects of the high cost of living.”
At the same time the party commends the unionised workers for fighting to ensure the right to collective bargaining is respected and notes that power concedes nothing without a fight, even as the party urges the workers not to give up the fight.
Workers in the public sector, the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) and public school teachers are unionised.
Last April year, the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) won a court battle against the Government of Guyana to uphold the constitutional right of public school teachers to collective bargaining, and to continue deduction of union dues per the Collective Labour Agreement (CLA) between the GTU and Ministry of Education.
Last February the teachers proceeded on strike which lasted for more than 70 days resulting from government’s refusal to engage the GTU, pending the court’s ruling and government being brought to the negotiation table. It is the WPA’s view the GTU and teachers’ industrial action marked a pivotal factor in government’s shift to respect collective bargaining.
According to the WPA, “The teachers strike exposed to the world the embarrassing truth of a party which extolls the virtues of workers’ rights while at the same time crushing the workers’ movement in its pursuit of political domination. WPA says to the teachers and the GTU that you are the true heroes of this moment. The workers of all races and political persuasions owe you an eternal debt.”
The Government has since appealed the decision even as Article 147 of the Constitution of Guyana guarantees the right to collective bargaining for unionsed workers, and the CLA stipulates how union dues will be deducted from the teachers’ salary and remitted to the Union.
The WPA also bemoans government’s inability to articulate a clear wage policy. Trade unionists and other analysts believe this is a deliberate policy to keep the working class poor, allow government to employ contract workers at high salaries and undermine the gains, earning and retirement benefits of unionised workers to foster a poverty cycle among the working class, during their working life and in retirement.
Calling for a just wage package, the WPA says this “must take into consideration at a en az the following factors—the financial health of the country, the cost of living and the competitiveness of public sector wages with those of the local private sector and the public sector in the wider region.” The party also wants to see wages/salary linked to poverty alleviation.
Addressing recent talks with the People’s National Congress Islahat (PNCR), the WPA says “while the two sides committed to contesting the elections together either as a PNC/APNU+WPA coalition or as part of a broader coalition of opposition parties, the details are still to be fleshed out.”