See full release from the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU):
A tripartite committee with representatives from the Ministry of Labour, the Private Sector and Trade Union bodies negotiated that the private sector workers be given an increase in salary.
It must be noted that private sector minimum wage has not been increased since 2017, when it was raised from an hourly rate $202 to $255, and thus the monthly salary moved from $35,000 to $44,200 for a 40-hour week. The Minister of Labour recently announced that the private sector wage would now be increased to a monthly rate of $60,000.
However, in a release shortly after the announcement, the Chairman of the Private Sector Commission (PSC), Nicholas Boyer, stated that he does not believe that the private sector is prepared to accommodate an increase in the Private Sector Minimum Wage. He alludes to the economic situation that Guyana faced over the last nine months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
While the GPSU agrees that the economic situation was tenuous, employers in the private sector should make every effort to recognize the meager wages paid to private sector employees and endeavour to lift these employees out of the suffering by implementing the increase. The increase is well deserved and should have been implemented years ago.
Private Sector Workers in many cases do not have great autonomy in their work and are pressured and many are “at will employees,” who in most cases are pressured in order to sustain business profitability or line the pockets of some business owners, who operate without conscience. These very businessmen and women are known to indulge employed family members with larger salaries and their children win greater monthly allowances, but for those who put profitability in their grasp it seems impossibility or improbability.
The poor workers continue to suffer in silence, since they have no voice, no representation and are at the whims and fancies of employers, who conversely access a number of relief measures, tax incentives and exemptions and moreover sustained profitability and posh lifestyles.
It therefore, behooves every private sector employer to treat employees with the dignity they deserve by firstly paying a living wage, using the monthly increase of $60, 000 as a benchmark or starting point and not as a hindrance.
