…says workers suffering long before the pandemic
Though the private sector has stated that it cannot currently increase the sector’s minimum wage, which has been at a $44,200 standstill since 2017, the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) has called on the sector to “treat employees with the dignity they deserve”, especially during the global health crisis.
In an interview with the State media a few days ago, Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PCS), Nicholas Boyer has presented the pandemic as the reason why an increase could not be facilitated. “At this time, the private sector doesn’t have the ability to withstand an increase in minimum wages…COVID-19 has destroyed sales for many companies. As a result, payroll expenses are a higher percentage of sales, which has resulted in furloughs and layoffs. To implement a higher minimum wage now would further increase layoffs and furloughs,” he told the Guyana Chronicle.
However, in a release on Tuesday, the GPSU said that while it may be simple for the PSC to state that the pandemic has financially affected the sector, likewise, low salaries has affected workers in the sector long before the pandemic. The Union stated that though it is a public service union, it is stepping up in representation of private sector workers who have been suffering silently for years.
“The poor workers continue to suffer in silence, since they have no voice, no representation and are at the whims and fancies of employers, who conversely access a number of relief measures, tax incentives and exemptions and moreover sustained profitability and posh lifestyles,” the Union stated.
“While the GPSU agrees that the economic situation was tenuous, employers in the private sector should make every effort to recognize the meager wages paid to private sector employees and endeavour to lift these employees out of the suffering by implementing the increase. The increase is well deserved and should have been implemented years ago… it therefore, behooves every private sector employer to treat employees with the dignity they deserve by firstly paying a living wage, using the monthly increase of $60, 000 as a benchmark or starting point and not as a hindrance.”
It was Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton who announced months ago that negotiations for the private sector minimum wage to be increased to $60,000 had recommenced. A tripartite committee with representatives from the Ministry of Labour, the Private Sector and Trade Union bodies negotiated that the private sector workers should be given an increase in salary. However, Boyer recently revealed that it is unlikely that this increase will occur during the financial downturn of the pandemic.
The last occasion on which the private sector minimum wage was increased was in 2017 when it was raised from an hourly rate $202 to $255, moving the monthly salary from $35,000 to $44,200 for a 40-hour week.
Concerned about the effect of the stagnation on the working people, the Union has maintained: “Private sector workers, in many cases, do not have great autonomy in their work and are pressured and many are ‘at will employees’ who, in most cases, are pressured in order to sustain business profitability or [to] line the pockets of some business owners, who operate without conscience. These very businessmen and women are known to indulge employed family members with larger salaries and their children win greater monthly allowances, but for those who put profitability in their grasp it seems impossibility or improbability.”
