Latest update November 17th, 2024 1:00 AM
Jan 25, 2015 News
UGSS calls for solution to end “deadlock”
The University of Guyana Student Society, (UGSS) is calling for a solution to end to the prolonged issue between University of Guyana, (UG)’s administrative board and the workers’ Unions over improved wages, salaries and benefits for employees attached to the institution. The students are concerned over the impact the current industrial action will have on those studying at the University.
Classes at the University were scheduled to begin tomorrow but instead, the University of Guyana Senior Staff Association (UGSSA) and the University of Guyana Workers Union (UGWU) will be staging a sit-in’ as a form of industrial action at the institution. There have been suspended negotiations for better pay checks and benefits.
The Unions are on strike calling for a 60 per cent salary increase payable from March 2015. The union is also calling for improvements of other benefits, duty free concessions and increased allowances for employees.
The sit-in strike is scheduled to last from Monday to Wednesday January 28, 2015. As such, employees occupy their assigned positions/offices but refuse to work or perform assigned tasks.
Staffers, including lecturers, are expected to be present on campus at their desks or in the classrooms, but will not be engaged in teaching and/or providing services. Classes at the tertiary institution will be disrupted.
UGSS’ President, Joshua Griffith, in an invited comment said that while the student body is in support of workers receiving better wages salaries and benefit, “since better pay means work,” a continued strike would mean a setback for students studying at the University.
Griffith expressed that there must be an end to the issue, which will cause students to suffer most. The UGSS head said that there should be discussions between the parties involved to bring an end to the matter.
Griffith added, “I think they should be opened for talks; there should be some form of compromise because I don’t think that Professor Jacob Opadeyi is such an unreasonable man to have this issue prolonged because students of the University are the ones being affected.”
The UGSSA and the UGWU in statement on Friday explained that UG Vice Chancellor, Professor Jacob Opadeyi has been notified of the strike which is based upon a decision taken by staff to proceed on industrial action, since there was no positive response to a number of demands outlined by the Unions.
The strike action is one that was based upon a decision taken by staff at a joint union meeting on January 19.
The Unions have said that the workforce has been suffering for a long time from starvation wages and an extremely poor and oftentimes dangerous working environment.
The body has sought to negotiate with the Administration since May 2012 but just when it appeared as the negotiations were making slow but somewhat progress, the Council intervened and cancelled a scheduled meeting and halting the process on the grounds that no remit was given.
The council also accused the Unions of being accredited to represent the workers, a notion which the Unions have refuted since the administration was directly responsible for our non-certification.
The Unions have moreover described the council’s tactic as “simply the latest of myriad excuses we have been given over the past 30 months.” The Unions have therefore called on all staff members to join in the industrial action.
Meanwhile, Professor Opadeyi who previously stated that he wasn’t aware of any resolution between the Unions and the University Administration, even after the Unions had threatened industrial action could not be reached for a comment.
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