GTU ‘still clueless’ after Head of State’s vague response to teachers’ salary concerns

Jul 27, 2018 News

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Even after a response from President David Granger, the executive of the Guyana Teachers’ Union [GTU] is no closer to knowing when an agreement will be inked, to facilitate the processing of a multi-year remuneration package for public school teachers.
This publication has learnt that a response from the Head of State comes on the heels of two letters forwarded to him from the GTU on the very matter.
An initial letter to President Granger was written by GTU General Secretary, Ms. Coretta McDonald, and a subsequent one was crafted by the union’s President, Mr. Mark Lyte.
Both letters sought to enquire of the Head of State about the reason[s] for the delayed remuneration package for teachers and also queried about a timeline for its realisation.
But Lyte in an invited comment to this publication yesterday said that the union is still clueless even after assurance by the President that the Ministry of Education will keep it [the Union] informed on the matter.
“The union wrote the president twice pertaining to the outstanding matter. He responded by saying the Ministry will be informing us of the outcome, but did not state any specific timeline, which is what I think is the problem…our membership need to know how much longer they have to wait,” Lyte disclosed.

He continued, “That is something that is of concern to us, we need to be able to relate to our members as to what time we will be expecting to see or hear something specific.”
According to Lyte, “the President did not even state by when we will be hearing from the Ministry of Education.” This is in spite of the union’s effort to detail to the president the protracted wait that teachers have already had to endure.
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 were, among other things, 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.
“We highlighted clearly to the President how long teachers have been waiting,” said Lyte, as he alluded to the dissatisfaction of its membership with regards to the way in which the matter is being handled.
He made reference to recent protest action by a faction of GTU’s membership to retaliate because of the perceived slothful approach to addressing the concerns of teachers.
“They felt that enough was not being done and they took action, so in the last week of school they started to protest. That is an indication of the direction the membership will be directed to, should there be a continued delayed in the signing of a satisfactory agreement, and in a timely fashion,” Lyte intimated.
He moreover revealed yesterday too that “if we see nothing happening when school is about to re-open, the union will probably be mandated by its members to take some form of action.”
The only information released by government on the matter in recent weeks was through Government spokesman, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, who at a Post-Cabinet press briefing said the report of the Task Force which negotiated a remuneration package for teachers had to be further scrutinised by the Ministry of Finance.
Lyte, as well as General Secretary McDonald, and several government representatives were among the persons who made up the Task Force which was required to fast-track negotiations for the teachers’ remuneration package. The work of the Task Force started in November and culminated in April.
The establishment of the Task Force was in fact a directive of President Granger in his attempt to thwart strike action which was instigated by the union because of stalled salary negotiations between the union and the Ministry of Education, which commenced in 2016.
Speaking of the report of the Task Force recently, Harmon said that Cabinet was expected to review the document, since some financial implications were highlighted by the Ministry of Finance.
But Lyte in response to the Minister of State’s comment had said, “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”.
He’d continued by adding, “This very government saw the importance of debunching monies and other salary benefits [for teachers]…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 had further shared his opinion that the statement uttered by the Minister of State seemed to indicate a lack of desire on the part of government, despite the efforts of a Task Force that it had appointed, to pay teachers their just deserts.

 

 

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