GT sanitation workers call off strike

…M&CC agrees to pay retroactive increase, one-off grant

The Georgetown Mayor and City Council (GM&CC) has agreed to meet the demands of its sanitation workers in order to end a strike which started on Tuesday.
The strike was spearheaded by the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) after a meeting with the M&CC’s Finance Committee on Monday afternoon had not been able to determine when the 6.5 per cent retroactive salary increase and $25,000 one-off cash grant would be provided to the workers. After there had been a second meeting on Tuesday afternoon, City Council agreed to pay the workers the 6.5 per cent retroactive salary increase with effect from January 1, 2023, along with the $25,000 one-off cash grant announced by Central Government for all public servants.
In an interview with Guyana Times, Town Clerk Candace Nelson explained that the parties have agreed that given Council’s financial challenges, the retroactive payment for 2023 would be provided to the workers in the first quarter of 2024.
The workers are expected to return to work today.
“We’re depending on, as we’ve always done, on rates and taxes to come in, to utilize those monies for the increase as well as to do services within the various constituencies…we are hoping that by tomorrow things will go back to normal,” Nelson stated.
City Council owes the workers approximately $34 million in retroactive payments and $14 million in one-off grants; and Nelson has said she would be engaging the Finance Committee to discuss new avenues to improve Council’s revenue collection capabilities in the new year.
“So, once that is done, it’s possible that we can come up with new ways of receiving money; but, for now, it’s still dependent on the taxes that are collected,” she explained.
On Monday, representatives of the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) met with the M&CC’s Finance Committee to discuss increases for staff who are responsible for cleaning the city within its 15 constituencies. During the meeting, it was proposed that the municipality pay the workers the one-off grant and a five per cent out of the 6.5 per cent retroactive increase. The union, which did not agree with the proposal, called for its workers to down tools.
In August, the newly-elected Mayor of Georgetown, Alfred Mentore, announced that he was unsure of City Hall’s financial status, and had committed to having an audit of the organisation.
During the City Council’s first statutory meeting after the election of new Councillors, the Mayor blamed his predecessors, the majority of whom were from the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition, for the current questionable financial status.
“I am not going to take blame,” Mentore said, adding: “We don’t want to be taking blame for some previous Councillors.”
Claiming that it is an administrative duty to ensure City Hall’s financials are in order, Mentore maintained that he would not take blame for the local organ’s position.
He related that the Council is ready and willing to outsource the necessary expertise to audit City Hall.
Further, he acknowledged that there are remaining concerns over the selling and leasing of lands in the capital city through the City Council, which is controlled by APNU/PNCR.
There have also been reported cases of alleged obscure transactions involving the writing off or wavering of taxes to businesses arbitrarily, without proper records of how amounts are arrived at, or how the agreement came about.