GPSU writes President seeking salary increase for public servants

The Guyana Public Service Union is seeking the intervention of President Irfaan Ali to address the matter of increases for public servants after none was offered in the past two years.

At the press conference today, GPSU President Patrick Yarde emphasized that despite the Union making proposals to the government in the past two years, there has been no increase forthcoming for public servants.

“It was considered necessary to bring this matter to the attention of President Ali. So a letter was sent to him for his interventions for this matter to be dealt with expeditiously and thanking him in anticipation because we could see no reason why since he is the ‘President for all’ we see no reason why he would not want to help in this exercise”, the GPSU President stated.

The last time public servants got an increase in their salaries was in January 2019. Mr. Yarde said since then, many public servants have found themselves facing additional challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects topping the list.

The GPSU wants to see the matter addressed soon since the Government has claimed that money has been set aside in the budget for salary increases.

“So we are waiting and hope that this matter will go smoothly because from previous experience, one of the difficulties that we have had with this government is paying money. As you are aware, in 1999, it took a 57-days strike to get this Government just to go to arbitration because we disagreed with what they proposed and we say let us go to arbitration we have a legally bound agreement to resolved the matter and they were even refusing to go to arbitration. The result of the arbitration clearly manifested why they didn’t want to go to arbitration because what they had put to us that they would have paid through a ten year period, the result of the arbitration has shown that they could have paid more.” Yarde explained.

The union also expressed concern that its proposals for the budget were all ignored including a reduction in the tax rate for workers and an increase in the income tax threshold.

The Union boss said the GPSU was never invited to discuss its proposals but the proposals were simply ignored and brushed aside.

The GPSU wants to see an increase in wages and salaries for public servants that would cover the increases they should have gotten over the past two years.