IS THERE A COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT?

December 22, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Peeping Tom, Source

It was to be expected that the main opposition groupings, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance for Change (AFC) would throw their support behind the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), which is engaged in protest activity against the arbitrariness with which public servants pay is being increased.

The main grouse of the union is that the government refuses to engage in negotiations with it over wage increases and for the 13th year in a row, the government has imposed a wage increase on workers within the public service.

APNU believes that the manner in which this imposition was made represents de-recognition of the union. But this argument raises the important question as to with whom the government should negotiate in determining wages increase. The union feels that since it is the recognized representative of workers in the public service, the government should engage it in negotiations. The union further feels that the government by not doing so is in breach of the ILO Convention on Collective Bargaining.

In the 1970’s, Forbes Burnham arbitrarily imposed agency fees on public service workers. This took away the right of any worker to decide whether or not he or she wished to be associated with the representative union in his or her workplace. Burnham did this to reward the unions for their support.

Under agency fees, all workers, whether or not they belonged to the recognized union, were subject to deductions from their salaries. These deductions went to the union and made the finances of the recipient unions very healthy.

After the 1999, fifty-six-day strike which was called by the GPSU, the agency fees and the system of automatic check-off was challenged in the Courts. They were deemed to be unconstitutional. As such, the unions could only now receive deductions from their members, and to receive these fees, their members now had to authorize the union dues deductions. This, it is believed, led to serious financial problems for unions which previously were in receipt of agency fees.

In the context of the call for collective bargaining, it needs to be therefore determined just what percentage of the total public service workforce is now unionized. Given the large numbers of contract employees within the public service, and given that thousands are now no longer paying agency fees, it may well be that the Guyana Public Service Union represents only a tiny fraction of the overall public service workforce. If this is the case, then the union’s ability to effectively negotiate will be weakened.

At issue here is also collective bargaining. Collective bargaining refers to a process of voluntary negotiations between unions and employers. Employers under collective bargaining agreements are required to negotiate with the recognized unions.  The GPSU remains the recognized representative of its members in the public service. Therefore, so long as there exists and subsists a valid collective bargaining agreement, then the government must negotiate with the union, failing which the union may resort to court action to force the government to do so.

It is indeed surprising that the Guyana Public Service Union has not moved to the Courts to demand that the government honour the terms and conditions of any valid and existing collective bargaining agreement.

This is one of the options open to the union, and may in fact be the best option available to end the arbitrary imposition of wage increases by the government, which continues to insist that what it has imposed is all that it can afford to pay.

The Alliance for Change, another opposition party, however feels that the government can afford to pay more. But can the government really afford to continue each year to increase the wage Bill without a serious contraction in the workforce? And can these increases be sustained over an extended period?

Cheddi Jagan was faced with a dilemma in 1993. Guyana was still in a structural adjustment programme with the IMF and World Bank, and the former wanted certain categories of workers to be red-circled, meaning that wage increases should be constrained for these workers. At the same time, Jagan wanted to pay the workers more, but was not sure of where the resources would be found to do so. So what did he do? He invited two persons to sit down and go through his Budget to see where the additional resources could be found to pay workers more. The additional resources were not found.

The issue of course today is not where the money will come from. The issue is not affordability but rather sustainability and viability. The concerns are about whether large increases can be sustained and the likely impacts of these increases on inflation and GDP growth.

There is a way out.  An agreement should be brokered to have two independent specialists go through the Budget and future economic projections to determine both the possible inflationary effects and the effects on GDP growth of increased wages beyond the 5% that the government usually offers.

With a credible determination of these two concerns, it may be possible with reasonableness for the two sides to narrow their differences and agree on a level of wage increases that does not jeopardize economic stability and which will move workers close to a living wage.