GPL workers get 5% pay hike, other benefits

Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 December 2016, 13:21 by Denis Chabrol

​Guyana Power and Light (GPL) workers will before year-end take home a five percent across-the-board increase and other benefits, in a breakthrough one day after technicians downed tools.

President of the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE), Kenneth Joseph said in addition to the 5% across-the-board increase, the power company workers will get a 3% in-scale movement.

Prior to Tuesday’s agreement, the GPL had offered 2% across-the-board and the union 8%, down from its original demand of 15%.

Joseph said GPL negotiators also agreed to the reintroduction of zero to 10% percent performance assessment increment one-off payment.

The NAACIE boss said the increment system had been in place from 2001 to  2004.

He said at least 800 NAACIE members at GPL will benefit from the package before the end of 2016. “The workers will be paid all their monies before the end of the year,” he told Demerara Waves Online News.

Negotiations for 2017 are scheduled to begin in February, 2017.

Workers of the transmission and distribution department on Monday walked off the job to protest the protracted negotiations that lasted almost one year without any agreement.

The industrial unrest on Monday forced GPL to put in place a standby pool of contracted workers and managers.