GPSU issues ultimatum to gov’t
-Chief Labour Officer cites Solicitor-General’s advice
Facing a three-week-old strike by teachers, the government was yesterday served with an industrial action ultimatum by the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU).
The Executive Council of the GPSU yesterday said it had unanimously decided at its Statutory Executive Council Meeting held on February 21, 2024, that an ultimatum be issued to the Government to meet at the bargaining table, the failure of which will result in industrial action to immediately end the government’s breach of the following guiding instruments of legal weight and force:
1. Agreement for the Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes, between the Government of Guyana and the Guyana Public Service Union of (1987),
2. Article 147 (3) of the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, and
3. Section 23 (1) of the Trade Union Recognition Act Cap 97:07.
In addition, a release from the union said that the GPSU places reliance on the Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) ratified by the Parliament of Guyana, including Convention No. 87 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining, and Convention No. 151 on Labour Relations (Public Service) which espouses minimum standards of the conduct for ollective Bargaining and the protection of the rights of workers to be unionized and be to represented by their duly certified and recognized Union with respect to any decision on the part of their employer that affects their salaries, wages, benefits, and other conditions of service.
“This decision is also guided by the protections offered to workers in Guyana pursuant to the ILO’s ‘Declaration of the Fundamental Rights and Principles at Work’ of 1998 (as amended in 2022) which is of weight and in force under the Laws of Guyana as an unincorporated ratified treaty”, the
release said.
The GPSU said that the issues affecting workers in the Public Service, and government’s reluctance to meet at the bargaining table, or to conciliate to break the deadlock that has arisen, were discussed
extensively at the Union’s meeting on February 21, 2024, which resulted from meetings with its members throughout the country.
“The Union will continue
to engage its members on this matter over the coming days through a committee which was established to ensure that the GPSU is mobilized,
and all grievance procedures under the existing agreement (are) followed as we issue, and thereafter