$60k private sector minimum wage should have been implemented years ago – GPSU

The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is of the firm belief that increasing the private sector minimum wage to $60,000 is not only well-deserved but is one that is long overdue.
Their pronouncement comes days after Chair 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.
Boyer had alluded to the economic situation that Guyana faced over the last nine months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the reasoning behind his position.
However, that did not sit well with the GPSU.

The union, in a statement yesterday, pointed out that while it 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 “endeavor to lift these employees out of the suffering by implementing the increase.”
“The increase is well deserved and should have been implemented years ago,” it said.
The union added, too, that private sector workers, in many cases, do not have great self-sufficiency in their work and who, in most cases, are pressured 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,” GPSU stated.

“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,” the union added further.
The union concluded that it is therefore incumbent on “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.

Already, Guyana’s Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton, announced that the private sector wage should now be increased to a monthly rate of $60,000.
The private sector minimum wage has not been increased since 2017, when it was raised from an hourly rate of $202 to $255, and thus the monthly salary moved from $35,000 to $44,200 for a 40-hour week.