OPPOSITION Leader David Granger has called on the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration to implement fully the recommendations of the Armstrong Tribunal that was established after the 8-week Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) strike in 1999. Mr. Granger, addressing public servants on the occasion of their Union’s 89th anniversary, pointed out that the administration’s adversarial attitude to the GPSU had been harmful to national development, institutional strength of the service and personal wellbeing of public servants.
He said that no government could function without a professional public service and no public service could function if it was demotivated, demoralised and depressed. It would be in the public interest for the PPP/C to alter its approach to working with the GPSU.
The Opposition Leader also congratulated the Union on its struggles over nearly nine decades of its existence.
He also assured Union members that APNU was committed to bringing the alleged abuse of contracts by the PPP/C administration to an end. According to him, engaging public servants on contracts, instead of career employees, was clearly intended to diminish the viability of the Union and undermine the independence and impartiality of the entire service.
Mr. Granger, quoting the words of a former union official Leslie Melville who described public servants as “the employed poor,” said that the public service today was under siege.
“It was under-resourced, underequipped and underpaid,” Granger stated.
He disclosed that, although A Partnership for National Unity had recommended increased salaries for public servants in its budgetary proposals, it fully respected the Union’s legitimate right to collective bargaining with the administration to secure higher salaries and better conditions of work for a good life for all public servants.