GPSU wants the best for public servants in 2019 budget

GUYANA Public Service Union (GPSU) President Patrick Yarde said the union will push for the best possible arrangement for public servants in the 2019 budget, set for the National Assembly this month.

“Public servants can expect that the GPSU, as has been the practice, would not accept, would not agree, would not sign to anything that we consider is not adequate,” Yarde said at a press conference on Wednesday.

However, the only reference as to what exactly the GPSU will push that Yarde provided was a three-year proposal the union submitted some two years ago.
The GPSU had proposed differentiated increases for all of the salary bands spanning three years (2016-2018).

It had requested that the offer should begin with a flat increase of $7,500 monthly added to the salaries of public servants as at December 31, 2015.

However, the government had proposed as its final offer a 10 per cent increase for persons earning $99,000 or less; six per cent for persons who earn between $100,000 and $299,000; five per cent for those earning between $300,000 and $799,000; two per cent for those earning between $800,000 and $999,000; and one per cent for those earning above $1M.

President David Granger had said that the government’s final offer resulted from the overwhelming amount of indebtedness that existed.

Yarde on Wednesday said public servants deserve better.

“A lot of public servants receive poverty payments. Lots of them [their] ends can’t meet with what they’re getting; so there’s no question on whether we will pursue the best we can get, that is a de facto position.”

He also addressed the recommendations coming out of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) conducted into the public service by the current Administration upon taking up office.
“We did not agree with quite a few of the recommendations that were made… for example, this differentiated salary that they give where people at a certain level are getting a one per cent. It’s ridiculous and it makes a mockery paying people those high amounts of money and you’re not taking into consideration the cost of inflation on their salary, so at least they could stabilise what they earn. So we made it very clear, we totally reject that,” Yarde said.

While he added that there were other good recommendations, he mentioned too that he is unhappy that talks have not resumed on issues outstanding since 2015 affecting the GPSU.

The GPSU is a non-partisan association of public service employees which exists to ensure fairness and justice for its members and to advance their interests through collective bargaining, representation, training and education, judicial reference and industrial action.

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