The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) has been forced to defend itself against an unfriendly PPP for sixty-one years. PPPC administrations’ adversarial attitudes to the GPSU – particularly during the 1961-1964; 1992-2015 and 2020-2024 periods – hindered national development and harmed the personal wellbeing of public servants.
Former President David Granger, speaking on the programme – The Public Interest – pointed out that contemporary and historical evidence showed that the PPPC deliberately opposes the GPSU at every turn. This is not without some loss to the country as the Union represents the interests of the majority of public servants − likely the country’s single largest employer with about 27, 000 public servants whose education, experience and expertise are essential to the efficient functioning of the state.
Mr. Granger recalled that the original British Guiana Civil Service Association (later renamed GPSU) was established 101 years ago in 1923 “…to ensure fairness and justice for its members and to advance their interests through collective bargaining, representation, training and education, judicial reference and industrial action. The GPSU had participated in the general strikes in 1962 and 1963 which forced the PPP administration to alter its financial estimates for the colony. GPSU’s 57-day strike in 1999 had a crippling effect on some state agencies, ending only after the Guyana Bar Association, Guyana Council of Churches, Guyana Trades Union Congress and the Private Sector Commission supported the move to force the administration into arbitration.
The Former President recalled that the GPSU recognised that the despondency among public servants had arisen as a result of the administration’s refusal to honour the Collective Labour Agreement to negotiate necessary reliefs and end the unilateral impositions of inadequate salary increases which fail to cushion rising inflation. GPSU complained that public servants were finding it difficult to live comfortably with an insufficient income but and were quitting the sector in huge numbers.
The PPPC, returning to office in 2020, resumed its campaign to disparage the GPSU, dominate the Public Service Commission, dissolve the Bertram Collins College of the Public Service, dismiss about 1,800 public servants, sideline the Public Service Appellate Tribunal and ignore the recommendations of the Harold Lutchman Commission of Inquiry on the Public Service. The PPPC, determined that Permanent Secretaries could belong to political parties, invented the tiny Public Service Senior Staff Association (PSSSA) which it appointed to be represented on the Public Service Commission.
PPPC, ideologically, disdains the precepts of political impartiality and neutrality in the Public Service. The PPPC’s determination to dictate senior service promotions was evident in earlier appointments of former PPP Ministers as Chairmen of the Public Service Commission, raising the question of whether partisan political appointees could be expected to properly administer an impartial Public Service. The former President expressed the opinion that an efficient public service is essential to the modern state. The public service cannot function if it was demotivated, demoralized and depressed. It is in the public interest for the PPPC to alter its approach to collaborating with the GPSU so that public servants can enjoy a better quality of life.
