Teachers’ remuneration negotiations back to square one – GTU President

Mar 21, 2017 News

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A recent move by government to shuffle permanent secretaries among ministries might have done

more harm than good for teachers within the public education system. This is in light of the fact that officials within the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) are convinced that the decision to move Ms. Delma Nedd from the Ministry of Education and replace her with Mr. Vibert Welch could prolong the negotiations for a renewed remuneration package for teachers.
GTU President, Mr. Mark Lyte, in an invited comment yesterday noted that given the fact that the previous Permanent Secretary had failed to sign off on certain aspects of a proposal presented by the GTU, “we are back at square one.”
This in light of the fact, Lyte said, that the Union, with the change of the Permanent Secretary, has had to write requesting a meeting which is yet to materialise.
The discussions for a Memorandum of Understanding between the Education Ministry and the Union, for a remuneration package for teachers, have been ongoing for more than a year. There were instances when the negotiations were completely stalled, which is the current situation, according to GTU officials.
Shortly before the re-shuffle occurred, the former Permanent Secretary had engaged the union in discussions and, according to GTU General Secretary, Ms. Coretta McDonald, “We proposed to our counterpart at the Ministry of Education that since our proposal has two parts – salary and non salary – we had proposed to them: why not let us put a temporary arrangement in place where we can look at the non-financial issues, so that it would not affect the teachers who are attending University of Guyana, even though that has some bit of finances to it.”
“We didn’t want it to affect teachers who are going off on Whitley Council leave or affect teachers

being transferred and promoted…we suggested that we can move on with those [non-financial] aspects until we have the financial aspect of the negotiations completed,” McDonald related.
Although there was concession in relation to the GTU’s suggestion, Nedd, the former Permanent Secretary, was not given the opportunity to sign off on this. Nedd’s relocation to the Ministry of Legal Affairs became effective on March 1, as was the appointment of Welch to the Ministry of Education.
Since Welch’s appointment there has been no continuance of the negotiations with officials of the GTU. “I am only hoping that we do not have to redo our negotiations,” said McDonald, during an interview with this publication.
“Our proposal will still be valid, but I would want to think the new Permanent Secretary would say I was not privy to the arguments and will need time to look at the document [proposal] and that will take a lot more time,” McDonald speculated.
However, an optimistic McDonald noted, “since we have looked at the non-salary aspect I am hoping that we will shortly arrive at a position and have at least this part signed off.”
The non-salary aspect of the proposal includes matters such as Whitley Council leave; teachers access to scholarship at the University of Guyana; points for teachers applying for promotion who are serving in riverain areas for at least three years; the release of Central officers each Wednesday for Union meetings; and the full-time release of the President and General Secretary to serve the GTU, among other matters.
A multi-year remuneration agreement between the union and the Ministry of Education had expired at the end of 2015. Since then the union had furnished the Ministry with a proposed agreement which, among other things, suggested a 40 percent across the board increase for teachers for last year.
Also detailed in its proposal was a 45 percent increase for this year (2017) and 50 percent for the following three years (2018-2020) for all categories of teachers.
In its proposal too, the Union had taken into consideration inflation and had made it clear that “should there be inflation higher than the percentage agreed upon, then the teachers/teacher-educators must get the benefit of the difference.”
However, the Ministry had last year offered what was believed to be an arbitrary salary increase. But according to Lyte, the Ministry was able to explain away its decision to arbitrarily offer teachers pay increases of 10 and six per cent which were payable at the end of October last.
Lyte revealed that since the Union had not agreed to the percentages offered, the Ministry had assured that the amount paid merely represented an interim payment, pending the outcome of the continued talks. The continuance of talks, from all indications, remains in limbo.

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