About a week ago, Governor Lou Leon Guerrero shared the plan to increase wages and salaries for Government of Guam civil service employees. These are the rank-and-file workers who are hired and retained under the “merit system.” The last time these employees were given a raise was in early 2014, following the Hay Study, conducted 2 years earlier. Since then, as we know, prices have risen around 35%.
Giving this raise is and should be uncontroversial. Ordinary working class people know that Government of Guam workers need a decent wage and that in an environment with inflation, continuing to receive the same pay as a decade ago is unfair. Virtually all workers on Guam, need a raise, whether they are working for a business or the government. Guam’s workers must remain united because some unscrupulous elites will try to drive a wedge between one group of workers an another in order to bamboozle them into accepting less than what their labor is worth!
Senator Chris Duenas is calling for denying pay raises to classified workers for two purposes: on the face, to pay for repair of our public infrastructure, but actually to fund a Business Privilege Tax cut for the top earning businesses!
Guam has the resources it needs to pay government and private sector workers decently and ALSO to invest in public infrastructure. In fact, paying GovGuam workers IS an investment in improved infrastructure! It turns out that WORKERS HIRED UNDER THE GENERAL PAY PLAN REPAIR PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE, including schools! In fact, BEFORE Chris Duenas announced his opposition to pay raises in comnection with the need to repair public schools, officials at Guam Department of Education testified about failed efforts to recruit repair and maintenance staff, plumbers, electricians, etc. because the pay offered was not competitive with the private sector. THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WAGE RATES STAGNATE!
So what about this BPT tax cut that is the REAL cause for the Republican Party’s opposition to pay raises? Virtually every Republican has publicly endorsed the cutting the BPT tax rate from 5 to 4%. What they aren’t telling the people, however, is that over 85% of businesses (those with revenue under $500,000) only face a 3% tax rate, at most. It is only the top-earning businesses that are required to pay 5%. Denying GovGuam workers their pay raise is the way they intend to finance this tax cut. No worker should be made to cover the cost of a tax cut to benefit a few big corporations and wealthy business owners!
Every worker deserves a raise! Come out and let your voices be heard on this issue! If you got your pay raise as a law enforcement officer, a teacher, or a nurse, testify about the difference it makes to your family’s standard of living to have received a pay raise. If you are an affected GovGuam worker, the Guam Legislature needs to hear from you so they can stand against the rapacity of the corporate elites. If you are an ordinary working class member of our community, stand with your fellow workers and realize that their working conditions reflect the conditions of the government that provides services for you! Our one path forward to a better life for all workers is simple: Solidarity!
GuamMinimumWage.org 