The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is preparing to mount a Court challenge to force the government’s hand to increase the salaries of public servants in light of the rise in the cost of living and other factors.
During a Press Conference today GPSU President, Patrick Yarde said the government is in breach of several local and international laws by failing to bargain with the GPSU on the way forward regarding increases in wages and salaries for public servants.
Yarde said the Government has taken on a hypocritical posture, explaining that while in Opposition it decried the Granger administration’s move to increase the salaries of the executive.
Yarde said not only did they enjoy such an increase while in Opposition but they are doing so now, and has totally disregarded public servants.
Yarde has called out the President for not matching his words with action as it relates to public servants salary.
“For example in 2016, while in Opposition he chided the APNU/AFC government for its failure to utilize collective bargaining towards determination of salary increases, but following his assumption as President in 2022, scant regard was paid to this legal requirement. In 2021, prior to the award of the miserly 7% across the board increase, the President proclaimed that his government was negotiating the outcome, but this clearly was a misrepresentation,” Yarde said during a press conference today.
The GPSU President has contended that the government appears reluctant to better the lives of public servants, noting that the government continues to announce large budgets and draw down billions from oil sales, but public servants have not benefitted.
“It is important to note that this government following its ascension to office in 2020 did nothing to alleviate the pain and sufferings of its workforce, other than to offer a minuscule cash grant of $25,000 in the year 2020 and a year later a paltry award of a taxable 7% across-the-board increase, which taken as a whole could not absorb the impact of COVID-19 price increases,” Yarde said.
Yarde said, the union thought that given past blunders of past PPP administrations, there would have been some changes with the current administration and public servants would have been treated differently but that is not the case.
“The action of the government appears discriminatory, given that GPSU has written severally, since 2020 requesting collective bargaining on public servants, wages, salaries, and allowances, to no avail,” Yarde said.
The GPSU President said the government has shied away from its responsibilities and obligations under the legally binding Collective Labour Agreements, labour laws, ILO conventions, and the rights of workers.
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