APNU’s Chief Whip supporting teachers’ industrial action

May 07, 2015 News

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Although unwilling to pronounce on whether A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance for

Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition will ensure that teachers are afforded their debunching monies if elected to power on May 11, 2015, APNU Chief Whip and Education Shadow Minister, Amna Ally, yesterday chided the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government for failing to do so.
Ally, who has been a teacher for many years but is currently a full-time politician, yesterday vocalised her earnest conviction that “the Government must pay the teachers their debunching money.”
“Why they don’t want to pay the teachers?” questioned Ally as she expressed concern about the failure of Government to honour its debunching payment obligation to the country’s public school teachers.
“I don’t know if they (teachers) will get it from this Government because this is a ‘hard ears’ and stubborn Government; this Government does not respect people’s rights and all they are doing is (making) elections promises,” asserted the politician yesterday.
As such, Ally said that the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU’) s decision to organise industrial action “is very much in order. I am supporting this,” said the politician of the currently on-going work-to-rule action being embraced by some public school teachers.
When asked if she would be advocating for her party to pay the debunching monies if elected, Ally would only say “why would I make a commitment and we don’t know what is going to happen? You don’t make commitments like that…”
During the latter part of last year executives of the Union met with the APNU but according to GTU

President, Mark Lyte, the debunching issue was not one that was discussed during that meeting.  This is in spite of the Union’s announcement last week that the issue is a “pressing” matter.
The debunching payment, among other benefits, is outlined in the multi-year agreement between the Education Ministry and the Union.  The agreement is set to expire at the end of this year.  Through the debunching plan, senior teachers who were trained some 10 years ago, for instance, will be paid on a higher scale than their junior counterparts.
“We have been extremely patient, waiting for 10 years to have our teachers receive the long overdue debunching (monies). For all these years we have been taken around and around and finally to be told there is no money,” said Lyte.
The Union at a meeting with Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, two weeks ago, was informed that Government hadn’t budgeted monies for this payment.
Meanwhile, Lyte yesterday informed this publication that the industrial action which officially commenced on Monday had been gaining traction. He had earlier informed that just over half of the Union’s membership had indicated their willingness to participate, but yesterday asserted that more teachers are now working-to-rule.
Work-to-rule is characterised by teachers doing their assigned task and no more, and possibly even returning home if their working environment is not conducive enough. But according to Lyte yesterday, the Union hadn’t any reports of teachers returning home because of their dissatisfaction with their working facilities. He however asserted that teachers embracing the industrial action are not doing any extra duties.
Currently, the GTU has some 7,000 teachers within its membership which translates to more than two-thirds of the nation’s public school teachers. Moreover, Lyte had told this publication that industrial action of any form could have significant impact on the education system.
The education system is preparing to not only conduct the National Grade Two, Four and Nine Assessments, but also the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examination and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE).  Moreover, Lyte underscored that the ongoing industrial action could have serious implications.
“We can do a sit-in, or a full-blown strike for about a week, but we want to start by alerting the administration (Government) that we will not sit back and be ignored. We are sending a message to them via this action that if they don’t get their acts together we can take other forms of industrial action,” warned the GTU President.
But according to him, “we don’t really want to be calling a full strike action because teachers will lose money…they don’t even have money already and so the strike might be something that we cannot sustain. Teachers have mortgages to pay and other expenses, and Government knows that we wouldn’t be able to sustain it.”

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