GTU flays President over unilateral announcement of benefits
GTU General Secretary Coretta McDonald on Friday waded into President Irfaan Ali for his Thursday announcement of benefits for teachers as she charged that it breached the principle of collective bargaining and was “disrespectful” and “dictatorial”.
In a Facebook broadcast, she labelled the announcements as a divide and rule strategy in breach of the constitutionally enshrined collective bargaining. She argued that while in opposition, Ali had professed support for free collective bargaining but was now in full breach of this.
On Thursday, Ali in a Facebook broadcast had announced heightened benefits for teachers and said that this had materialized as a result of meeting he had held recently with educators at State House.
He also said that there would shortly be an announcement of an across-the-board increase for public servants and other categories. There has been no collective bargaining with the GTU or the GPSU
In his announcements, he said that graduate teachers will be moved to the maximum of the scale applicable to the post that they currently occupy. This will pertain to 4,000 graduate teachers at an extra annual cost of $1b.
Graduate teachers with a bachelor’s degree will now get a monthly education allowance of $10,000.
Teachers with a master’s degree will get a $20,000 monthly allowance.
Teachers with a doctorate will have a monthly allowance of $30,000.
The remote area incentive for teachers will now be $20,000 per month from December 1st, 2023.
He also said that all teachers who hold the substantive position of senior master/mistress or above who are within three years of retirement and have not previously had a duty-free concession for a car will be eligible to receive a dutyfree concession for a motor vehicle up to 1500 cc.
He said that there is currently provision for 100 duty-free concessions for teachers each year. Outside of this, each senior master/mistress and above who has not received the dutyfree concession before will now be entitled to it three years before retirement.
While she said that the union is not opposed to benefits for teachers, McDonald poured scorn on the $25,000 styled by the President as a bonus for teachers when others have
gotten $40,000 and $250,000.
She said that the US$211m in disputed ExxonMobil expenses would have gone a long way to the improve circumstances of teachers.
She accused the President of union busting but said that the GTU would hold fully to its principles as one big family.