Is the PPP working class?
PEEPING TOM
Kaieteur News
July 17, 2004
This year in wages negotiations with the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), the government of Guyana reportedly offered a three per cent increase in salaries. This increase is below the rate of inflation for last year and therefore the government did not have any intention of preserving the purchasing power of teachers even using the unrealistic official rate of inflation.
Cheddi must be shuddering at the bottom of our three main rivers where his ashes were dispersed. He must be wondering what has become of the working class policies of his government that there can be so much disregard for the working class that the government which he helped to form and got elected to power, could erode the real income of workers, a group that he fought for during his entire adult life.
Why is it that the government is eroding the purchasing power of teachers? The reasons have nothing to with trying to punish anyone. In fact, insofar as these wage offers are concerned the government has little choices but to go along with the policy prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank which make it clear each year that the wage bill must be kept within limits. But while the government has limited choices, it does have one choice that it is not prepared to adopt.
It is generally accepted that apart from privatizing state owned enterprises, the government has failed abysmally to reduce the size of government. And in so far as protecting the wages of workers are concerned, the only way that the government would ever be able to pay and sustain a living wage would be to cut the size of the public service and consolidate positions.
Eighty per cent of the public servants presently earn below $40,000 per month and this alone suggests how bloated is the public service at the lower rungs. The strategy that was employed to reduce the size of the public service, namely attrition, has not worked to any significant degree and therefore when workers’ representatives complain about the anti-working class nature of the government, they should recognize that the government is making a trade off between preserving jobs and paying better wages.
Better wages can be paid. But for better wages to be paid there will have to be serious cuts in personnel. The wage bill is much too high to be sustained and therefore labour must come out and accept that there will have to be redundancies and downsizing in the public sector as whole if increased wages are going to be sustained.
Of course the social costs of these lay offs must be considered. Closing the Demerara sugar estates probably makes sense but the social implications may be difficult for any government to deal with, especially in a polarized society such as ours. The dilemma that faces governments is that unless they take drastic action it is difficult to really make meaningful change.
The experience has been that it is better to make as we would say, “one bad job” because in delaying the ultimate, we dig a deeper hole for ourselves. Decisiveness in change is often a good thing.
Unfortunately, I am yet to see the trade union leader who would advocate a reduction in its membership. In these circumstances, innovative ways must be found to pay increased emoluments while at the same time keeping the wage bill within budgetary limits because whether we like it or not, the tight restraints imposed by the international funding agencies are for our own good.
There are some union leaders who try to argue that there is wastage and corruption and that a reduction in these activities alone can generate the income to pay a living wage. These leaders cannot be serious because any exacting assessment of the public sector wage bill will indicate that in order to pay a living wage and to sustain it, employment cuts must occur. No matter how much you trim the fat, there will not be enough to trim to satisfy the demands for a living wage that can be sustained over an extended period.
One of the problems with wages negotiations within the public sector is that it concentrates too heavily on percentages to be paid, rather than looking at the larger picture. And that larger picture indicates that there are deficiencies in a number of agencies, overstaffing in some, under staffing in others, a critical need for high skilled individuals which itself places extreme pressures on the wage bill, poor productivity and a scandalous work ethic among many, not all, public servants.
The present public sector modernization program is, to put it mildly, a waste of time. It is visionless and will not yield the results that will contribute to a professional and efficient public service. That program reminds one of the LEAP initiative in the mining town. The public sector modernization program is poorly conceived and is a waste of money.
To address the problems of workers, a serious attempt must be made to provide people with jobs that are well paying. To do this will require mass retrenchment and a far greater commitment towards higher levels of productivity.
It will also require that public officials be held responsible for on -the- job performance. Every year hundreds of millions are spent in the education system. But what is the result at both the SSEE and CXC examinations. The results are shockingly high levels of failure. We spend an equally astronomical sum of money on health. Yet, one decade after free and fair elections, a Guyanese doctor had to be flown to Trinidad after suffering a stroke. He had to be flown there because a machine that is basic in the provision of health care is not to be found in our public hospitals.
While on one hand labour may criticize the government as being uncaring, the government can point to the fact that they have resisted pressures to cut jobs. They will point to the huge investment in social services and infrastructure will benefit all. Perhaps one way of mitigating the demands of labour over the next few years would be to try to make these public services work better.
When sixty per cent of students writing the SSEE fail to make the grade, then we have a problem that affects labour. When in some government offices productivity is low and yet costs continue to soar we have a problem. When the public hospitals struggle to provide quality health care, we have problems.
But the real problem in Guyana is that despite all the complaints about poor wages in the public service, people are not leaving en masse from these jobs.
This points to another problem that is as much a problem for labour as it is for business and the government.