Dear Editor
A FLURRY of letters regarding the 10 percent salary increase given by Government would seem to suggest that it did not go down well with the unions and the public service workers. And they are right. Let me make this point that, as a former trade unionist, the workers’ spending power has been reduced over the past 18 years by the Jagdeo and Ramotar governments. Those two governments paid the workers a mere 5 percent salary increase, which was deemed starvation wages. The workers later became disillusioned with the 5 percent offered, but they couldn’t oppose it.
The sugar workers were given preferential treatment, with 15 percent across-the-board increases although production was low in the sugar industry. The previous administration reversed the Aubrey Armstrong tribunal decision of 31 percent increase for the workers; scaled down some increases; removed capital taxes on vested interests; increased indirect taxation on consumer goods; and reduced the workers’ spending power. There were other methods used in their desperate bid for votes. For decades, the Jagdeo,Ramotar Administration successfully held off a claim by the public servants for revision of salaries and wages in the face of the steep rise in the cost of living. At every elections and weeks before Christmas, Government agreed to pay out a small 5 percent to the employees.
What the PPP government did in its 18 years of government on the labour front was: change the labour legislation to 40–hour week without reduction in pay; pass a minimum wage law for all working people; give portal-to-portal pay in certain industries, and remove the means test. The two-week annual holidays with pay; time-and-a-half for overtime; double time for Sundays; Sundays and holidays equal pay for equal work; and improvement of working conditions with regard to health standards began during the Burnham era. In the new environment of this Government, labour has already made some important advances. Unions and their workers are also heartened by the fact that the collective bargaining, so sacred to trade unions, has under the Jagdeo,Ramotar governments been restored; and today the GPSU can bargain directly with the Government on vital issues, in particular on wages. This is vital if unions and Government are to improve the working and living conditions of the workers.
The GPSU, through consistent struggles and militant action, regained its collective bargaining rights this year, and have since been able to move earnings for the public servant workers to a more satisfactory level. I feel, from my union experience, a 20 percent across-the-board salary increase would have been more reasonable. No one can deny that the workers and their unions, especially the GPSU, played a leading role in the great struggle for removal of the PPP after 23 years in power.
I have noted the vigour with which Ministers Volda Lawarence, Simona Broomes and Keith Scott have been moving to resolve disputes in relation to union-recognition issues. Several polls and surveys have been conducted over the past 15 months to settle issues which were long festering under the PPP, and allowed some unscrupulous employers to benefit by increasing the exploitation of workers. When the new government assumed office, within the first 100 days, it offered pensioners a 10 percent increase in the face of run-away inflation, wage freeze, retrenchment and credit squeeze. The Government inherited a wrecked economy. Some 60 percent of our people have been living below the poverty line, 40 percent are jobless; millions were allotted in increased allowances for the disciplined services, and just a pittance was allotted to nurses, teachers, pensioners etc.
Indications are that the economy is slowing down as a result of both external and internal factors. The Government is faced with reduced prices for key exports such as rice and sugar, projected production and revenue shortfalls due to natural disasters emanating from El Nino weather conditions, drought and floods. And the Government has had to bail out rice farmers and sugar workers with millions of dollars which went missing from the PetroCaribe Fund. As the country’s ability to pay continues to improve, the unions and their workers will press ahead for a more liveable wage. The GPSU and Government can still, in good faith, continue bargaining for duty-free concessions, houselots, and increments for the public servants and other workers.

Regards,
MOHAMED KHAN