To protest or not to protest

Jun 12, 2016 News

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By Sharmain Grainger

While dedication is important, remuneration could often be the factor that determines how much an individual commits to a profession. So it should come as no surprise that some teachers within our public education system are swiftly becoming frustrated that they are yet to hear about an increase for this year.

This has reportedly been no fault of the union which represents them – the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU).
For the past five years, teachers were eligible for a five per cent increase. The union was able to ink an agreement with government to this effect. But that agreement expired last year.
The GTU has ever since been trying to renew its agreement with Government for a new remuneration package for the teachers it represents. But this process has not been very simple. In fact, the GTU had accused the Government of deliberately delaying the negotiation process and had even threatened to take industrial action earlier this year if it wasn’t fast-tracked.
The talks have since continued.
During talks two Fridays ago there was consensus between the two sides with regards to several of the non-financial aspects of the Union’s proposal. “For all the issues that don’t have any relations with finances we agreed on most of them,” GTU General Secretary, Ms. Coretta McDonald confided.
Among the non-financial aspects of the proposal is that teachers in the hinterland be given shorter periods to serve their contracts and also be able to gain points for promotion. Usually teachers are required to serve a five-year period after completing training at the Cyril Potter College of Education.
Smaller class sizes for teachers has also been recommended by the Union and it has called for measures to be put in place to encourage teachers to further embrace information communication technology.
But as it relates to the financial aspect, the GTU is hoping to ink an agreement, spanning the period 2016 – 2020, that will translate to a 40 per cent pay increase for this year, 45 per cent for next year (2017) and 50 per cent for the following three years (2018-2020) for all categories of teachers.
The Union has also proposed duty free concessions for other categories of teachers, apart from heads and deputies, and more allowances for teachers who work in the hinterland.
The talks, between the Union and the Ministry, were slated to continue on Friday last. But as soon as it was kicked into motion, the convenors were forced to put it on pause; and for good reason too.
Word had reached the meeting that the teachers of a public school had engaged protest action. The school – Brickdam Secondary – has for sometime been a bother to the teachers who work there. They had long dubbed the environment not conducive for the teaching and learning process.
On Friday the teachers complained of having a school void of potable water and made known that the building is so flawed that it appears to be slightly leaned.
Both Union and Ministry officials, including Chief Education Officer, Mr. Olato Sam, agreed to suspend the negotiation meeting in order to head down to the school to appease the protesting teachers.
It was long expected, though, that the operations of the school would have been relocated to a more conducive location. In fact the GTU had been advocating for this quite publicly too for some time.
According to McDonald, GTU has been saying that Brickdam Secondary, Central High and St. Margaret’s Primary are all schools that should have long been relocated. This was not only premised on evident hazards, such as what obtains at Brickdam Secondary, but because there are concerns as it relates to space. “They are cramped in the city and every now and again when you have some kind of confusion, such as protests and so on, those schools are disturbed,” McDonald amplified.
But there is hope for an intervention, at least for Brickdam Secondary. This is in light of the fact that the CEO not only gave an ear to the teachers’ concerns, but instructed that measures be taken to remedy them forthwith.
But this does not speak very well for the Ministry, since the fact of the matter remains that the Brickdam School has been faced with some of the same concerns since 2012. The teachers did not fail to highlight this in great detail on Friday. They even reminded the CEO that they had brought their concerns to the fore before, evidently to no avail.
Sam assured that engineers would have commenced work over the weekend. He even went as far as to summon Ministry engineers to the school on Friday so that they could have examined the issues that triggered the protest action in the first place.
“They looked at the toilets, they looked at the doors, they looked at the lighting facilities, they looked at everything, and they have promised that over the weekend that they are going to be doing some work,” McDonald related.
Sam agreed with the Union that if the teachers resume work tomorrow and find that there have been no improvements, they will have every right to refuse to work.
“Many times it is taken for granted when head teachers write the Ministry about concerns…nothing is done. No one stops to send one or two officers to the schools, but when teachers decide to protest and they (Ministry officials) go down there then they can see for themselves and understand what teachers have to go through sometimes,” stressed McDonald.
While it is expected that much needed change will be realised shortly for the Brickdam School, it can certainly be deduced that the negotiations for a renewed remuneration package for teachers is definitely destined to be considerably delayed, given the fact that we are already halfway through the year.
It is, however, anticipated that negotiations between the Union and the Ministry will continue as soon as Wednesday and will not have to be triggered by industrial action.

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