GGMC workers on strike will not be paid – Official

By Tracey Khan – Drakes

[www.inewsguyana.com] – Employees of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) who are currently on strike following a row over salary increases will not be paid for the days they have stayed away from duties; a member of the management team has informed iNews.

The workers sustained their industrial action today (Monday, January 12), as they continue to demand a 35% increase in wages & salary, with solution seemingly in sight.

Commissioner of the GGMC, Rickford Vieira explained that the matter is now out of their hands; but maintains that the Guyana Public Servant’s Union (GPSU) acted in, “bad faith” by taking the workers on the streets during negotiations.

“It is beyond management here… management already exhausted our roll,” he said adding that “management already dealt with the issues as much as they could and it is left now to the policy directors to guide us forward.”

He said GGMC recently received confirmation that the life of the Board has been extended by one month and will be run until the end of January 2015.

He opined that the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is not making the issue any easier for the workers since negotiations will not be done while workers are on strike. 

“We would not enter into negotiations with people when they are on the streets, that’s not how it is done…we had one meeting with the union last Friday and nothing actually came out of it. The issue we have is that there is a mechanism, a recognition agreement between Geology and Mines and the GPSU that clearly states how you go about dealing with these different issues and the union acted in bad faith, if you got an agreement that say how we will deal with these issues if there is an impasse and we are not getting anywhere then you should stick by that, we can’t have an agreement and then  you decide to have industrial action which is contrary to the agreement that was signed.”

He explained that the impact the industrial action is having on their output is not as significant since “a lot of them on the streets is actually support staff but we still maintain we still have sufficient people at work to keep the organization going, we are not at full scale we can’t do everything we use to do, but the critical areas are working.”

The protest initially commenced in November 2014 but came to a halt after a proposal was put forward by GGMC management for an interim payout of 8%, across the board, while discussions continued on a 35% increase.

The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is now claiming that management’s failure to pay the salary increases has forced workers to take to the streets once more.

According to Senior Industrial Relations Officers at the GPSU, Denis English a meeting was held this morning with the management of the GGMC but it was futile.