Armstrong optimistic of meeting deadline
By Courtney Jones
Dr Aubrey Armstrong, chairman of the arbitration tribunal set up to look into the pay dispute between government and the public service unions says he is optimistic that the panel will come up with an award by the September 5 deadline. The process is "proceeding smoothly in a very cordial atmosphere. Things have been moving very smoothly and on a consensual basis. We have tried to get consensus on the issues and we are trying to get very civil exchanges going as we carry out our work," Dr Armstrong told Stabroek News yesterday. The other members of the panel are Bank of Guyana executive, Dr Gobind Ganga for the government and economist, Dr Clive Thomas for the unions. Dr Armstrong said that the work of the tribunal was being carried out in a "working atmosphere with give and take" and that as colleagues they knew that they are "in a very serious discussion and we have to look at the short-, medium- and long-term turnaround of the public service, improving morale and so on and we are not doing it in a narrow framework..." The arbitration hearings are being held at the Hotel Tower and, according to a press release from Dr Armstrong, after the second meeting of the arbitration panel which was held on Wednesday at the Health Ministry, the proceedings were closed to the public and only representatives from the two sides will be in attendance. The tribunal is looking at differences existing between the public service unions and government in connection with wages and salaries increases for public servants for 1999 and 2000 and the "legitimate access of public service employees as part of the Guyanese community to funding for poverty alleviation." Dr Armstrong, a Guyanese management consultant currently based in Barbados, said a framework has been set at the meetings which says "basically that we are all Guyanese and it is a problem that we have to solve and we are not interested in the histrionics..." He said what has been happening is that the two sides are putting the issues on the table, there have been healthy discussions and a framework for solutions is being worked out. "We are at the stage where we are listening dispassionately to the best cases put forward by the two sides," Dr Armstrong explained. The press release said that at Wednesday's meeting of the tribunal, the unions' presentations examined the dispute from a historical perspective and looked at the legal and moral aspects of the dispute. The tribunal also agreed to ask for several documents and have a number of witnesses called for verification of the facts presented. These include the Chief Statistician, the Accountant General, the Governor of the Bank of Guyana, Chartered Accountant Christopher Ram, the Minister of Finance, the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, the Comptroller of Customs and Excise, the Auditor General and the Minister of the Public Service, according to the press release. In response to a question, Dr Armstrong said the panel is satisfied that it has been getting the documents that it has been asking for and that it has not been refused any document that it had sought to get from the government or the unions. "I think that there has been full cooperation. We have called for a number of witnesses but we would not get to them until about Monday," Dr Armstrong disclosed, adding that he had no doubt that the witnesses called would cooperate fully. Labour Minister, Dr Henry Jeffrey, had told Stabroek News last week that the tribunal would complete its work by September 5. Dr Armstrong said that he was optimistic that the panel would come up with an award by the September 5 deadline. "We are all aware of how serious this issue is," he said. Yesterday's meeting was attended by among others, Federation of Unions of Government Employees (FUGE) and Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) consultants Asgar Ally and Leslie Melville respectively, GPSU General Secretary, Joseph Brandt and Permanent Secretary in the Public Service Ministry Rabindranauth Sivanand. The unions and government agreed on the setting up of the three-man arbitration panel as one of the terms of resumption ending the 55-day public service strike on June 23.
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