Latest update February 6th, 2025 7:27 AM
UG Unions advocate for “no loss of pay”
– concerned some striking workers paid, others weren’t
“Clearly the University’s system of identifying those who were on strike is flawed,” said President of the
UGSSA President,
Dr Mellissa Ifill
University of Guyana Senior Staff Association (UGSSA), Dr Mellissa Ifill, as she disclosed that while some striking workers were paid their February salaries, a number of others were not.
Industrial action at the University of Guyana commenced about four weeks ago with a sit-in, and according to Dr Ifill, most of the workers had embraced that move for two weeks.
She disclosed that some workers who participated in the sit-in but not the subsequent full strike action were in receipt of their full pay.
“By reason of that, everybody should have been paid at least two weeks,” said Dr Ifill as she considered that the practical option would have been for the University to deduct monies from a subsequent pay package, as workers would have already worked some days.
Moreover, Dr Ifill noted that “I don’t know what the University’s agenda is, but clearly it is an attempt to force us to capitulate (and) return to work, and if that is the case then based on a meeting today (yesterday) their calculation is clearly very flawed, because staff reiterated even more strongly that they are not returning to work, particularly in light of the anomalies and illegalities.”
And there are some other issues that staffers are paying keen attention to, according to the UGSSA President. She pointed out for instance that academic staffers in particular are evaluated differently on the basis of their research, teaching, public service and administrative profiles.
“All of these difficulties arise from the decision on the part of the Administration to pay who they believe had turned out to work,” said Dr Ifill.
This publication understands that a number of persons who were openly engaged in full strike action were paid their full salaries.
But according to the UGSSA President, the Unions are focused on advocating for “no loss of pay” for workers. This, she noted, is based on the fact that both academic and support staff are prepared to fulfil all of their obligations.
“There is a ton of work waiting for all of us…lecturers. We will have to teach those weeks that were missed; the support staff they will have all the backlog of inputting grades and all kind of materials for the students. Everybody will be on an accelerated pace when we get back and we will have to make up for work we would not have done,” Dr Ifill asserted.
Moreover, she is convinced that once striking workers are able to outline to the Administration how they will make up for the work not done “then clearly we will have to be paid. I rather suspect that the University’s administration is not opposed to paying us our salaries once we work out an arrangement to fulfil all our obligations to the University and to the students.”
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