City Hall workers strike over late payment of salaries

Several sections of City Hall were today forced to close their offices including the Public Health, Engineer, Market and the Treasury Departments after workers represented by the Guyana Local Government Officers Union (GLGOU) protested the non-payment of salaries for October.

Speaking with News Room, Wendy DeCunha, President of the Union stated that the strike action will continue until the Council finds the money to pay workers.

“We have had enough, the Union and workers have had enough,” she said.

She explained that workers from scale 2-4 were paid from the 30th of October onwards, and the $7M which was collected earlier this week by Deputy Mayor, Lionel Jaikaran from a businessman whose interest was waived by the Council, was used to pay Scale 5 workers.

However, DeCunha explained that the City Hall has 16 scales of workers.

She noted that the Union at a previous meeting gave the City Council an ultimatum to pay workers by Wednesday afternoon, but they failed to do so, prompting the strike action.

“What I’m saying is workers are your most important asset and if you are not going to pay your workers on time, how you expect them to provide some of the same community services?” the Union President said.

She further pointed out that the Council was able to pay contractors last week.

Responding to comments made by Chairman of the Finance Committee, Oscar Clarke at City Hall on Tuesday that moves will be made to retrench staff to reduce the Council’s employment expenses from 68% of its revenue, the GLGOU President said that is a common threat made every time the Union raises its concerns.