The method and the award
by Frederick Kissoon
THE three-man arbitration commission that was set up to adjudicate the wage dispute between the state and the public service unions, has disintegrated in charges and counter charges that will have political repercussions as the society tries to grapple with the re-fashioning of a new political culture. I take this position from what I learned from the responses to Dr. Gobind Ganga's presentation over a GTV programme last Thursday when we shared a panel discussion. The arbitration fiasco has further divided the society. Callers were divided, again, and again, as they are wont to do whenever a crisis unfolds in the country in which the principal antagonists are government and opposition or groups that are overtly seen as belonging to one ethnic group or another. The government's decision to pay the handsome sums given to public servants is not only politically commonsensical, but in terms of political economy is a wise one. Two reasons should be advanced for this. First, public servants were in need of a generous increase. Secondly, despite alleged procedural irregularity, up to this point argued only by Dr. Ganga, and which up to now has not been met with a response from Dr. Armstrong and the highly articulate and politically outspoken, Dr. Clive Thomas, there is no legal basis at the present time for rescinding the arbitration decision. The award must be separated from the issue of procedural irregularity. I have no economic or psychological reason for rejecting the award. Elsewhere I wrote that public servants in Guyana are too poor to exist on current levels of remuneration, and thus the generosity of the award should be applauded by those who care about the social conditions of state employees. I did say too that the pay should see public servants reciprocating by dispensing a higher quality of service to the nation. The physical size of the arbitrators' munificence surprised the entire society though. I am betting that no civil servant anticipated a figure near 40 per cent. In any case, the 40 per cent advocacy was a fundamental business strategy as old as civilisation itself. Informed members of this nation knew that the state of the economy could not have sustained a figure near 40 per cent and the award is close to 40 per cent. Despite the allegations by Dr. Ganga against the other two members, Dr. Thomas never came close to 40 per cent even though morally he was obliged to argue for that since he represented the unions' position. The pivotal question then is what happened to cause the panel members to escalate from 17 per cent to 31 per cent? Dr. Ganga has stated his case and if Armstrong and Thomas are going to rebut him, they have to come good. Ganga comes across as a morally righteous man. He comes across as a credible complainer. The hostile press have looked at his charges against Armstrong and Thomas and the vultures have not picked his bones. If Ganga is right, arbitration in this country will never be the same again. Apart from the allegations of the government nominee, the government itself is seeking clarification from Dr. Armstrong on his "pressures" claim. If Dr. Armstrong is to be believed, then the Government or some of its subordinate officers were not practising the very professionalism that Dr. Ganga claimed was missing in his other two colleagues. If Dr. Armstrong cannot prove his assertion, the working of the arbitration panel must be called into question, be investigated, then challenged in court. After this, legal frameworks are going to be invented to prevent such disasters in the future. What we don't know is why Dr. Ganga would want to make damaging statements against some of the top Caribbean scholars unnecessarily. Previous to this, all we knew of him was that he is a bright western-trained economist working in the Bank of Guyana. In fairness to Armstrong, he came to Guyana with an excellent record as a fine business scholar who defied Burnham. And as for Clive Thomas, he is one of the best economists the Third World knows. Sometimes the runner stumbles. Did one or two members make mistakes in the work of the arbitration?
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