GTU proposed strike illegal, ministry has met many demands
-Chief Education Officer
The Chief Education Officer yesterday said a planned strike by the GTU on Monday would be illegal and he urged teachers not to join, arguing that the ministry has fulfilled many of the union’s demands and others are under consideration.
In an open letter to all head teachers and teachers, Chief Education Officer, Saddam Hussain said that he considered the course of action being recommended, “to be quite unexplainable and incongruous considering the relationship between the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the GTU.”
On Monday, the GTU announced that teachers will be taking industrial action come February 5 until a favourable response is obtained from the MoE and the other relevant authorities, regarding salary increases and non-salary benefits, among other pending issues.
Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) General Secretary Coretta McDonald expressed her frustration with the government’s handling of negotiations. According to her, in 2020 a proposal was submitted by the union to the government. This proposal, she explained was supposed to span from 2020 to 2023, but no response has been forthcoming on it, to date.
“So that proposal is what we’ve been arguing all the time about… We wrote them… We wrote the Ministry of Labour, since GTU and the Ministry of Education… since the two parties could not sit and agree on the form of negotiations, on what the outcome is going to be, we wrote the Ministry of Labour and we asked the Chief Labour Officer if the two sides cannot sit, let the Ministry of Labour now act as the mediator,” McDonald told Stabroek News on Monday.
The Member of Parliament (MP) continued that after 14 days had elapsed without a response to the GTU’s letter of appeal, they sent yet another letter, but received no response still. This then led to another letter being sent, this time with a request for an arbitrator, the ultimate stage in the process.
Hussain’s letter yesterday disclosed that in its quest to provide critical support to teachers, the MoE yesterday morning held a pre-arranged, scheduled meeting with the teachers union to address the payment of teachers who have completed GOAL programmes, the implementation of Circular 7 of 2023 which allows for an additional deputy head teacher, senior master/mistress and reduction in the workload of teachers, in addition to other issues which revolved around teachers’ conditions of work. And as far as the Ministry is concerned, such engagements illustrate the Ministry’s commitment towards improving the lives of teachers.
In his letter the CEO acknowledged that the GTU had made 41 proposals for better working conditions, and in response MoE had fulfilled 25 of those requests in less than 3 years. Further, of the 16 remaining requests 2 are specifically for the benefit only only GTU and GTU executive members, and two are contrary to the laws of Guyana.
“In essence, the MoE has not reached an agreement with GTU on the following issues: salary increases for some scales (MoE has gone above GTU’s request for some scales), allowances, rehired teachers paid at the scale that they retired at, housing fund (which the Union has repeatedly failed to give a way forward for although the fund has a few hundred million dollarsput there by the Government) and salary scales for different HoDs and Sixth Form Deputy Heads, payment for the marking of SBAs and house lots for teachers in each new housing scheme.”
It was pointed out that the 12 unresolved issues are currently being examined for their practical implementation and sustainability. And in fact, only two weeks ago, the Minister of Education tasked the Exams Division of the MoE to consider her proposals and return with options in order for a