The National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) may consider strike action if workers don’t get adequate increments says general secretary Rajni Chand.
Ms Chand said the union consisted of hourly paid workers in government, most of who did not get a pay rise since 2017.
She said they would continue to petition against the minimum wage increase for members of Parliament as they voiced their frustrations towards the lack of increment for government workers.
“The cost of living has gone up and people can’t afford to survive these days. They want a salary increase,” Ms Chand said.
“The last increment was paid in 2017 and they had gotten a 5 per cent raise. After 2017, they never got any other increment and government has based all the wages onto the marriage basis where the key performance indicator (KPI) came into place. In this KPI, the years of service is not counted, only performance.”
She said most workers were left behind without any salary increase, and government needed to be considerate “because they are the only breadwinners of the family”.
“We might possibly go on strike if workers don’t get increment. The rate of pay is very low, and the cost of living has gone very high.
“We are hopeful that whatever we are requesting from the government, government should take it into consideration because instead of increasing parliamentarians’ pay, they should first consider the poor people’s pay.”
Questions sent to Minister for Employment and Productivity Agni Deo Singh remained unanswered when this edition went to press.
