Damning indictment against the Guyana Teachers’ Union

Mar 01, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Please permit me space ventilate my angst regarding evident selfishness of the Executive of the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) as is manifest in the Union’s recent preposterous proposal in negotiation with the Ministry of Education.
The Union crafted a lofty proposal, making, inter alia, the following demands:
1. An across-the-board increase in salary of 40% for 2016; 45% increase in 2017; 50% in 2018; 50% in 2019; and 50% in 2020;
2. A $7,000 monthly vehicle maintenance for those who received duty-free concessions;
3. Double salary in the month of December;
4. A $25,000 annual clothing allowance;
5. Whitley Council Leave being granted every three years;
6. 200 duty-free concessions for motor vehicles up to 2700 cc to be granted annually from 2016 to 2020;
7. That one motor vehicle be given to GTU biennially;
8. That EACH Central Executive Officer be given a duty-free concession for motor vehicle up to 2,700 cc upon election to office;
9. 50 scholarships annually for teachers to attend the University of Guyana;
10. That ALL Central Executive Officers of the Union be released every Wednesday – and from time to time as the need arises – to perform Union duties;
11. That the President and Secretary of the Union be released FULL-TIME – WITH PAY – to serve the membership of the Union; and
12. That an extra teacher be assigned to each school at which a Central Executive Member is a staff.
Now, no one can fault the Guyana Teachers Union for being ambitious, but the aforementioned excesses are preposterous! The proposal is replete with self-interest. How the Central Executive of the Union could even conceive its members being released to attend to Union duties – one day every week, and at other times as may be determined necessary, for all Executives, and full-time with full pay for President and General Secretary – while being paid as full-time teachers is mindboggling. To actually articulate that is perplexing.
An across-the-board increase in remuneration seems par for the course. Negotiating wage increases is essentially what trade unions do. However, for a teacher who receives a monthly income of $100,000, the phased proposed increase would see that teacher taking home $140,000 monthly in 2016 ($280,000 in December); $203,000 monthly in 2017 ($406,000 in December); $304,500 monthly in 2018 ($609,000 in December); $456,750 monthly in 2019 ($913,500 in December); and $685,125 monthly in 2020 ($1,370,250 in December). This is the epitome of unreasonableness. This sort of unreasonable throws the entire proposal out of the window, and had the Union been negotiating with a certain individual of an earlier incarnation, the proposal would be thrown over the shoulder.
This December double-salary dependency syndrome is not sustainably manageable for any government, far less the Guyana Government that is trying to lift the economy out of the throes of inadequacy and corruption. Which serious, caring union, appreciating the state of its nation’s economy, would make such proposal?
Two hundred duty-free concessions annually; duty-free concessions for all Central Executive Officers; one motor vehicle gifted to the Union biennially; 50 University of Guyana scholarships annually; $25,000 annual clothing allowance; $7,000 monthly vehicle maintenance allowance all tantamount to moral bankruptcy. These people’s conscience and humanity have departed them.
Why should the Government release – with pay – executives of any union to attend to union duties? Doesn’t the Central Executive of the Guyana Teachers Union know that this is a demand for an illegal, unethical outcome? Surely the President – who has presided over a union fraught with ineptness and corruption and is seeking re-election today – must have known that it is NEVER the responsibility of the Government to ensure a workers’ union’s sustenance. He and his acolytes in the Central Executive cannot be so consumed by excesses that they believe because this Government is new, it would be amenable to meeting the surreal, untenable demands of a union that has failed its membership over the last two decades.
The Guyana Teachers Union boasts a membership in excess of 7,000 persons. With a monthly Union Dues of $700 per member, the Union receives in excess of $4,900,000 monthly ($58,800,000 annually) from its membership alone. And how do these members benefit? By each receiving a bottle of Thrill (soda), a cheese roll and a pine tart at the Labour Day Rally. And 75% of the membership does not even attend the annual event. So who are the beneficiaries of the Union? Well you can answer that for yourself.
Add to the infuriating foregoing the fact that the GTU Elections are a farce. The Central Executive has total control over the process. It is no wonder that the General Secretary and Treasure are returned to office term after term. This Union needs an urgent professional audit. This Union is afflicted by corruption and nepotism. This Union needs to be dissolved or reconstituted. This Union is a stain on the teaching service in this country. This Union is the most self-serving, inept of workers’ unions in the Cooperative Republic!
Anthony Nedd

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