LABOUR-GUYANA: Civil Servants Threaten to Shut Down Government

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, May 7 1998 (IPS) - Public sector workers in this South American Republic are threatening to “shut down the government” if the Janet Jagan administration does not honour its demand for a 30 percent pay hike.

The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) Wednesday asked its 15,000 members to begin a work-to-rule episode as a prelude to a general strike which is expected next week.

Work to rule here means not cooperating with requests from supervisors for overtime duties and in effect, doing only what is considered normal during an eight-hour shift.

“This is the first in a series of moves to be taken by the union to focus government’s attention for a just wage for public servants,” says General Secretary Lawrence Mentis.

From work to rule, the union could move on to the next stage — a go-slow — considered an advanced stage of work to rule and then on to a general strike.

A mass rally at the Square of the Revolution, just a few metres away from the office of President Janet Jagan and the same site used by the main opposition People’s National Congress (PNC) for anti government protests, is scheduled for May 15.

There workers will be brought up to date on plans by the union executive to force the government to move up its offer of a 9.5 percent increase in salaries which it has offered.

As an indication of the possible direction the rally will take, Mentis says several prominent citizens will speak at the forum. Observers say this can be interpreted to mean persons who have a grouse with the government and will no doubt use the opportunity to criticise it.

Additionally, a multinational team of electoral and computer experts, rechecking votes from last December’s election results, which are being disputed, has set the end of the month as the deadline for completing its task.

Daily, reports from the team pointing to administrative and other problems with the poll have only served to heighten fears that the timing of the strike could present security problems for officials, especially if there are more protests over the findings.

The GPSU is the second largest trade union in the country, the largest being the sugar workers union which represents 20,000 workers.

Membership of the GPSU includes state doctors, lawyers, magistrates, government clerks, nurses, air traffic controllers and ferryboat employees.

The GPSU has demonstrated its ability to seriously disrupt the system in the past. In 1989 a strike by the unions representing workers in the bauxite industry led to a virtual shutdown of that sector as well as the university campus as workers protested a massive devaluation of the currency and the steep price increases that came with it.

The army and police were called out to quell civil unrest and the crackdown also included the arrest of a clergyman, academics and union leaders.

Meanwhile, observers say, Jagan, out of the country on private business, is likely to regard any industrial action as political and draw comparison to a similar general strike in the early 1960s that eventually brought her husband’s administration down in 1964.

She is at the helm of government three decades later and is facing what is certain to be a big fight if the plans of the union are to be taken seriously and bearing in mind Public Service Minister, George Fung-On’s statement that government is unable to pay more than the 9.5 percent increase which it has offered to the workers.

Public sector workers are among the lowest paid here. Many casual labourers receive salaries three times higher than some white collar government workers.

Some state workers take home as little as 40 dollars each month. This, some say, is not enough to purchase even a pair of shoes and pay transportation costs to get to their offices.

The result is that the vacancy level in the public service now stands at almost 50 percent. The workers are demotivated and there are always complaints of inefficiency at government offices.

And while government has acknowledged this, Fung-On says the administration remains constrained by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity programme still in place after more than a decade.

The IMF measures to bring the country’s economy back on track, among other things, call for a cut in government expenditure.