MoU inked for training of GTT employees, salary increase

Workers attached to the Guyana Telephone Telegraph Company (GTT) will soon undergo training in the area of fibre optics, which would eventually position them to benefit from a boost in their salaries.

This has been made possible following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the telecommunications giant, the Guyana Postal and Telecommunications Workers Union (GPTWU), and the Ministry of Labour on Wednesday.
After completion of the training, technicians and other employees would benefit from a 6 percent pay increase in 2023.

Chief Executive Officer of GTT, Damian Blackburn, has said the training would bring the company’s workers up-to-date with the skills needed for the 21st century.
“We, the company, are committing to a transformational training programme for our technicians, to ensure that they are fully trained with the skills of the 21st century, in line with our mission.
“We’re going to be upscaling through these training programmes all-around fibre skills. GTT fibre is the flagship product here in Guyana, as we all know, and it’s very important that we bring in-house somethings we’ve been doing with contract staff, who have done a great job, and we’ll need them still to some degree as we go through a large amount of installation work, which has happen in the next couple of years. We really need to bring all of our skills in- house, and have the best possible fibre optic-skilled team.”
Also important, the CEO noted, is that the technicians who are trained have an absolute pathway and certainty on their pay progression.
“The people who are trained have an absolute pathway and certainty on their pay progression. So, as they serve for a longer time and they (become) more skilled and they reach their individual performance targets…, their pay will progress in a very transparent manner, and we’re committed to doing that,” he said.
“All of the technicians who go through training programmes this year, provided they pass the training and they get to a satisfactory (level) and pass the test, at the end of it, (they) will get automatic promotions to recognise their new skillsets effective from January 2023, and that will lead again to extra remuneration to those people who are progressing successfully,” he stated.
Blackburn added that if inflation increases by 2023, the company would be reviewing the pay increase to better suit the situation at that time.
Meanwhile, Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton has said he is glad that that company recognises the importance of not only pay increases, but training for employees.
“Agreements with companies must not be just the type of salaries people receive; that’s one thing, (I) believe there are two other factors: (firstly) training and retraining, and secondly the issue of the environment; how safe the environment is that the workers are working in, because what is the use you raise a man’s salary to $5000 a day and the following day he dies,” he said.
According to the Minister, the landscape of the labour market is changing, and unions and companies would have to keep up.
“Unions will have to contend with fixed establishment employees and contract employees. The contract employees, their representation also, and therefore I would say this to the union leadership: you have modernised yourself in a way so you can capture those persons.
“Some union leader sees this as big contention as to contract people displacing establishment people…my experience for young people is that they don’t see themselves working for 30 and 40 years no place, and so they opt for contracts,” Hamilton further explained.
As such, the Minister noted that the Unions should not complain, but must adapt to the two different sets of workers.