Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 09, 2014 News
The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) and the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE), say that there seems to be planned efforts by the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) to erode union representation of its workers.
They have demanded acceptance from the power company to jointly negotiate workers’ rights, but say that their request has been met with resistance.
For more than 10 months, the two workers unions which represent the GPL staffers; have been in discussion with company executives to negotiate jointly, specific issues affecting workers. They say that if the power company continues to refuse their proposal they will mount pressure on the relevant authorities.
Among the issues being faced by the unions is the conflicting information being disseminated by the company. GPSU Head, Patrick Yarde, said that GPL is supplying alternate financial information to the unions and that this seems to be creating a rift between the members of the two unions bodies.
NAACIE General Secretary, Kenneth Joseph, said, “During negotiations, GPL gives different financial information to one union against the other.”
The members, he said, are aware of the information at different levels, “and as such, the information is being used to overweigh one section against the other.” The unity of the unions will reduce arguments that relate to salaries and fringe benefits since the two unions would negotiate these issues separately.
Yarde said that there were occasions where negotiations with GPL were completed with one union, and when finalized with the other union, there was disquiet. Management had to therefore react to balance the situation by giving the other union the increases that were superior in their negotiation.
Yarde said that the unions are seeking to remove these issues, “so whatever is applied is applied even handedly.”
The two unions have separate Collective Labour Agreements with the power company, and together, they represent some 1000 staffers. NAACIE represents junior employees providing pivotal ground services, while GPSU bargains for clerical staff; junior and senior managers.
The unions have promised that if GPL does not meet their demands; they will take the issue to Conciliation and seek the intervention of the Labour Minister and their international partners, hoping that pressure will change the minds of GPL authority.
The unions argue that their proposal has been routinely ignored, and they have not yet utilized their right to approach the Ministry of Labour or the international affiliates, in the hope that the matter will not reach that far. “We feel that this worker-friendly proposal could be easily dealt with between the two unions and GPL.” They argued further that there is no difficulty with the proposal and highlighted that other companies and unions have come together in joint negotiations.
They say that in the past three to four years, “NAACIE has discerned the deliberate Company strategy to weaken the union by eroding its GPL membership by laying off its members, to sometimes re-hire them or others, on contracts which exclude union representation.”
The union sees this as “anti-union, anti-democratic, and anti-worker.”
The General Secretary said while the union engages in constant programmes to make workers aware of the necessity of union representation, the workers are enticed with lump sum pay offs and then return to the job without a union to represent them. Between 2009 and 2011, the union lost close to 250 members, Joseph reported.
“Our two unions have agreed that there are separate issues whether wages, salaries, fringe, benefits, travel allowances etc, which we will negotiate separately for, but there are numerous common conditions for which we share identical positions.”
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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