Members picket GTU headquarters

Jul 04, 2018 News

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– over Govt’s slothful approach to salary Agreement

While the executive of the Guyana Teachers Union [GTU] had months ago expressed optimism that the inking of a Memorandum of Understanding [MoU] to facilitate salary and non-salary benefits for public school teachers was on the horizon, up to yesterday, the ‘remuneration fate’ of the educators continued to hang in the balance.

But the teachers are not taking this state of affairs lightly.
In fact, teachers of the South Georgetown branch decided to move to incite their Union to take action in light of the delayed efforts to bring to fruition the inking of the MoU. Just over a score of teachers, led by their Chairman, Kerwin Mars, congregated at the GTU’s Woolford Avenue, Georgetown headquarters to highlight their concerns.
The teachers indicated their desire to protest rather than merely sit and have a conversation on the matter.
Representatives of the Union, including its President, Mr. Mark Lyte, and its General Secretary, Ms. Coretta McDonald, were among the members of a Task Force, which was established to fast-track negotiations for a multi-year remuneration package for teachers.
The establishment of the Task Force was in fact a directive of President David Granger as a strategic tactic to dissuade planned strike action instigated by the Union. The Task Force, moreover, included representatives from the Ministries of Finance, Education, Communities and the Ministry of the Presidency.
The negotiation process came to an end in April and a report containing the recommendations of the Task Force was handed over to Minister of Education, Ms. Nicolette Henry, who in turn presented same to Cabinet.
The last word on the matter was that the report was with the Ministry of Finance. Just last month, the GTU President expressed anxiety over the situation. He had even confided that the Union was trying as far as possible to appease its members’ frustration.
He said that the Union had upheld its promise to not share with them what the results of the negotiations are.
“We are trying to keep our part by giving [Government] a fair chance; we are keeping our end of the bargain and we haven’t even shared what was recommended with our members, but we need to hear something and we need to hear something soon,” Lyte said.
But the jig was up yesterday as a faction of the membership decided that the Union was being unfair to them by continuing to be quiet on the matter.
With placard highlighting the desire to see that Government addresses the issues including salary, payment of de-bunching monies, suitable working environment, clothing allowance, among others, which were addressed during the negotiation process, the teachers, stood on the Avenue outside of the GTU headquarters voicing their concerns.
“[The Task Force] would have made some progress since ‘don’ know when’. But what is getting teachers on their nerves is that nobody is coming out and saying where is the Agreement, how far the Agreement is, who has it, and where it stands?” Mars complained yesterday.
He added, “Teachers are saying the Union is not doing enough and they feel it is time the Union come out and say something to teachers. We need to say something to our teachers; our teachers need to know what is going on. That is why, we from the South said that we are going to mobilise teachers to find out what the Union is doing for teachers…

“Teachers have to be strong to push the Union.”
According to Mars, based on the information filtered to teachers, Government and the Union should have, at least, been on the verge of inking an Agreement by the end of this school year, which his slated to come to an end Friday.
“This Union is sitting down! This is time that you should call out your members; get your members on board and let’s take a stance….its overbearing, frustrating, you name it, all are happening to teachers,” said an animated Mars.
He continued, “These very teachers have to sit in the classroom and perform. They have to give of their best and all the Minister [of Education] could say ‘Oh good common entrance results, good CXC results and teachers we must thank you’.
“But nobody is saying ‘Teachers we see your pain and we are going to get your money; nobody is saying those things.”
It is his expectation that the action of the South Georgetown branch will agitate the other branches of the Union to take similar action too.
“We are from South and South will always take a stance to start the move…And if we have to take a stance against the Union…If it takes us alone, we don’t mind. We fed-up of this very same nonsense over and over and over.
And if we fed-up then it means they have to start doing something for us…Teachers are asking me questions and I can’t give them answers.”
Recognising the concerns expressed by the teachers as legitimate, McDonald, the Union’s General Secretary, said, “Teachers are quite upset that everybody sees them as just a teacher; you ought to be in the classroom.
“Teachers feel that they are being disrespected as the moulders of the nation hence the reason for the teachers being out there today [yesterday].”
McDonald also dispelled allegations that the Union has been idle in its representation. “We have been making calls to various Ministers, we have been writing letters but these letters and these calls have not been yielding fruits.
“Our teachers are saying to us now as their leaders, ‘you have to say something to us or we know what to do’ and so they are here and we are saying to the government, we don’t want to hear any longer the document is with the Minister of Finance. We want to hear how early you are going to be completing that document and how early that Agreement is going to be signed.”
“We cannot continue to wait for this Agreement to be signed. Teachers have retired in 2015, 2016, 2017; teachers are retiring in 2018 and they will continue to retire.

“What do we say to them after teaching for 35 and 28 and 32 years? Are you saying to them that they will exit the profession without having their due reward? It is not fair to our teachers! These are the same people who have been giving their all to this system.
“These are the same people who have been working day-in and day-out…These are the people who turn up at school at 7 o’ clock [07:00 hours] in the morning to receive children at 7:15 [07:15 hours] because their parents have to go to work.
“These are the teachers who stay at 7, 8 and 9 o’ clock at nights with children to ensure that children are successful at the exams. Are we saying that all of these labours are not counted? Come on, somebody needs to say sometime to us,” asserted McDonald.
Government’s failure to indicate the way forward swiftly could very well see the continuance of the strike action, which was aborted with the establishment of the Task Force, McDonald informed yesterday.
And the Union will be fully backing its membership’s decision to take action since, according to McDonald, “we were promised within a short while, and we took a short while to mean short, that we would have had that document addressed and the official signing off of that document so that our teachers can receive their benefits.
“Since then, we have been hearing the documents are with the Minister of Finance. As recent as last Friday, I received a document saying that the document is with the Minister of Finance and that he is going to entertain us as soon as he returns from his official visit to Vietnam or somewhere like that. I don’t know how much our teachers can continue to wait for the Minister of Finance and his team to address that document.”
At the end of 2015, a previous multi-year Agreement inked between the former government and the GTU came to an end. As a result, the Union presented a proposal for a new multi-year Agreement to the current government.
Entailed in the proposal was for a 40 percent across the board increase for teachers for 2016; 45 percent increase for last year and 50 percent for this year and the following two years (2019-2020) for all categories of teachers.

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