Cabinet announced public schools sweeper/cleaners will be offered employment on a full-time contract gratuity basis at the public service minimum wage level. These workers will be given individual contracts. They will not be the beneficiary of collective bargaining and the conditions of work of those within the bargaining units.
It was the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government in the 1990s that fired all public schools sweepers/cleaners and security guards. The government subsequently outsourced these services to private contractors. Under the new condition these workers were denied benefits ordinarily accrued to workers on the permanent establishment.
Under the new gratuity arrangement workers will not be entitled to pension. In the release the government was silent on who will be responsible for paying the workers’ contributions to the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) which has consequences for the entitlement of benefits, long and short terms, such as sickness, maternity, individuality and old age pension.
The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), for years, has condemned the outsourcing of sweepers/cleaners jobs and the conditions under which they worked and called for corrective actions.
According to the release, Cabinet is attempting to regularise what a previous PPP/C government did to the named category of workers. And whilst the situation may offer some security in pay and gratuity, it does not meet the basic requirements for public service employment.
Sweeper/cleaners, the release acknowledged, have long expressed the desire to also be considered as regular employees at public institutions and receive similar benefits. This aspiration is not yet attained.
The Government said some steps have been taken to address other pending anomalies in the salaries being paid to other categories of employees, including some teachers who are affected by inconsistencies in their pay grades depending on the year in which they were appointed. The release is silent on whether the Government will engage the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) in Collective Bargaining.
The two-year-old Irfaan Ali government is yet to meet the GTU to address the proposal submitted to them. The Union’s General Secretary, Ms. Coretta McDonald, told Village Voice repeated letters of reminder to the government about their proposal are still being met with the response-when the government is ready to engage the union will be informed.
