Weeks after the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) inked a deal with Government for retroactive salary increases and benefits between 8 and 12 per cent; another workers’ representative body, the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is gearing up to increase pressure on Government to ensure public servants get improved wages.
GPSU Head Patrick Yarde is prepared to go as high as the sky – percentage wise, telling reporters that the union’s upcoming Executive Council meeting later this month will include discussions on whether or not there will be changes to GPSU’s 2015 three-year proposal given the outcome of Gov’t’s multi-year deal with teachers.
“[It will] be determined by the Constitutional body if there is evidence for us to consider higher our lower; we could go to the sky for the limit. Lots of public servants receive poverty payments; lots of their ends can’t meet with what they’re getting. There is no question with whether we will pursue the best we will get,” the GPSU head detailed.
The long time union executive says despite the assurances given, the negotiations would usually drag out to the end of the year, a practice he expected would cease after 2015.
He says he wrote President David Granger after GPSU could not schedule ready meetings with the Department of Public Service’s Permanent Secretary but since then, the position is now vacant according to Yarde.
“When it became vacant, I wrote the President another letter saying that there was now nobody there to speak to for the situation to be remedied. There was a series of things that was happening and now he is ill so at our executive council meeting on Friday, we will determine how to proceed to deal with this matter,” Yarde outlined.
