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Jul 08, 2018 News
“The Guyana Teachers Union [GTU] will not allow another academic year to reach without our teachers knowing what will come their way and what they will be receiving.”
This was the assertion of GTU President, Mr. Mark Lyte, in a comment to this publication on Friday. He was at the time weighing in on the perceived slothful approach of government to process an agreement for a remuneration package for public school teachers.
Lyte told this publication that “should there not be something coming out of Cabinet in the coming week and therefore the inking of an agreement in the near future, the union will very well have to go through the procedure and send an even stronger message than what the few teachers who came out to protest earlier in the week.”
Any possible move by the union to retaliate will be discussed at the level of the union’s general council meeting slated to be held in a matter of weeks.
Earlier last week, teachers of the union’s South Georgetown branch decided to picket not only their union but also the Ministry of Finance, in retaliation to the protracted wait for them to reap their deserving benefits.
But the Ministry of Education in response to the teachers’ decision to picket made an appeal for them to exercise a bit more patience as efforts are made to advance efforts aimed at realising an agreement. This publication was informed that the Ministry of Finance was tasked with perusing recommendations made at the level of a Task Force established by President David Granger to fast-track the process.
But according to Lyte, “it is an unreasonable request for the Ministry to keep asking us to be patient, because what we are asking for has been on the table since 2015. Three years of patience has been adequate a time for government to get themselves in order and address the concerns of the nation’s teachers…to ask teachers to be patient now is really an absurd request.”
Lyte, however, noted that while the union fully understands the frustration of its membership, the picketing exercise was not one that was organised by the central executive of the GTU.
“It is not something that the body would have sanctioned, because an action of that nature would have warranted us following due procedure. But the action is an indication to government of the level of frustration of our teachers,” Lyte asserted.
Given this dilemma, he added, “the union will seemingly be unable to quiet teachers in the future, in terms of asking them to remain calm, because as you can see teachers are taking matters into their own hands to vent their frustration.”
Lyte lamented on Friday too that “another school term has come to an end and there is no clear word…not even a semblance of a document to say ‘look, this is what we have arrived at’. Let’s say for example they did not see as favourable the recommendations of the Task Force, then at least they could say we have looked and it and this is what we have arrived at…”
Lyte, as well as the General Secretary of the union, Ms. Coretta McDonald, and several government representatives were among the persons selected to make up the Task Force tasked with fast-tracking negotiations for the teachers’ remuneration package. The work of the Task Force started in November and culminated in April.
At a press conference Thursday, Government spokesperson, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said that the report of the Task Force containing recommendations was seen by Cabinet and forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for its consideration. He noted too that the matter has since been perused by the Finance Ministry and is slated to again be reviewed by Cabinet to consider some financial implications that were highlighted by the Ministry.
But according to Lyte, “it really baffles me to know that they are surprised to know that whatever the Task Force was looking at would have financial implications, because it is no secret that this very government admitted that teachers were underpaid.”
“This very government saw the importance of debunching monies and other salary benefits, so how is it now that they are making a statement to say that when that is a foregone conclusion, and whatever was coming out of the Task Force would have had implications,” Lyte added.
He is concerned that the statement of the Minister of State seems to indicate a lack of desire on the part of government, despite the efforts of a Task Force that it had appointed.
“The Task Force looked at all the pros and cons related to the conditions of work and the benefits meted out to teachers…there were representatives of different government agencies and entities, and they sat there and saw the merit of putting forward a position for the teachers, so the statement coming out from the government spokesperson leaves much to be desired,” Lyte asserted.
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 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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