Striking workers on Wednesday

Board Chairman of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. Winston Brassington says the five-percent all inclusive wage deal being offered to non-managerial workers is beyond what the company could afford.

Workers represented by NAACIE began a strike yesterday with the union calling for an eight percent package.

At a news briefing on Thursday Brassington noted that the company has had to be assisted with government subsidies in light of high fuel prices in recent years. Last year’s subsidy amounted to GUY$6B.

“When we look at the position of NAACIE in striking we believe that they are not telling you the truth about what our offer is and what the state of the finances of the company is. Because any reasonable person would see that we don’t have the money to pay massive increases.

Every dollar that we put towards that increase takes away money from maintenance and investment and so whilst we respect our employees and we respect the union and want to have a good relationship with the union we believe that our offer has been fair and unreasonable and we should not be in the position today where they’ve taken strike action,” Brassington said.

He added that labour minister Dr. Nanda Gopaul has invited the company and the union for discussions on the way forward on Friday.

NAACIE has said that GPL’s offer is in breach of the Collective Labour Agreement they signed in 2001 but the company is saying that that agreement is no longer in effect.

“That agreement had a life that would have expired at the end of 2003 with the proviso that wages and salaries negotiations would have extended into 2004. As we understand it the agreement basically has expired in totality.

While we continue to engage the union and respect many elements of that Collective Labour Agreement as we speak today I don’t know that our actions over the last six years, many of those actions which would have been agreed by the union, and this is the all-inclusive offer, is different from what we’re offering now,” CEO Bharrat Dindyal said.

He pointed out that the union had agreed to similar deals like the one being proposed now for the successive years from 2007 to 2011.

The GPL 2012 offer covers a one percent across-the-board salary increase, three percent in-scale salary increase and performance increment.

The strike has not affected power generation in Demerara which is supplied by Wartsila under contract. Contract workers are also at the Leonora power station while senior staff are working at Versailles and the Garden of Eden plants.

GuySuCo provides a significant amount of the electricity in Berbice while there are skeleton staffs operating at the Canefield and Onverwagt   power stations. Contract workers are handling transmission and distribution matters in Demerara and Berbice but Essequibo has been affected.

“We weren’t able to provide service to Leguan and Wakenaam last night and we’re working feverishly outside of GPL to try to get the assistance of a contractor to provide persons to operate Wakenam and Leguan locations.

At Anna Regina and Bartica we were able to provide service but unfortunately the people who actually work through at Bartica we had to allow them some rest today during the day,” Dindyal said.