PSM denies GPSU’s claims of no talks

PUBLIC servants yesterday took to the streets as they protested a five percent retroactive pay-hike for this year announced by government earlier this week.

Nurses at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and workers of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) were among those who picketed outside their workplaces.
The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) on Thursday decided to take industrial action commencing, firstly, with protests, followed by sit-ins, go-slows and possibly strikes.
GGMC workers held placards that read, among other slogans, “5% can’t work. This eye pass must stop,” “Public sector workers demand 25%,” “Stop dangling Christmas carrots. We want 25%. Public workers are not ponies,” and “Our work is real, our value is real. Our wages and salaries must be real.”
The GPHC nurses on the other hand were pressing demands for higher salaries for their services.
Second Vice-President of the union, Dawn Gardener noted that workers were very angry about the five percent increase since the union had requested a 25 percent pay hike for workers.
The GPSU has so far dispatched their grievance to the Ministry of Labour for conciliation.
Although the union has maintained that government has ignored repeated requests for negotiations, Public Service Minister Dr. Jennifer Westford, however, indicated that she has evidence that the two sides have been communicating about the demand for pay increases.
Westford said the two sides last met in either March or June and subsequently the GPSU wrote the PSM saying that the talks were not going anywhere and they would have been going to conciliation.