The Teachers’ Union is buckling under pressure

Aug 30, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Guyana Teachers’ Union is about to fall apart. It is weak-kneed. It is not standing firm in the wages impasse it has with the government.
The pressure that the government has applied and the inadequacies of the union is creating panic within the leadership. The union is hesitant. It is retreating from its original position of a 40% top-up for 2016 plus 5% annual increases.
The union is floundering. Instead of sticking to its original demand for an immediate 40% across the Board increase in wages for 2016, it is now weakening its own negotiating positions by saying that it is willing to accept less than 40%.
The government is winning the propaganda war and the union has been unable to convince many of its own teachers that the 40% is affordable. The government has been peddling the line that the teachers want an increase of 40% for 2016, 45% for 2017 and 50% this year. This is not the revised position of the union. The union has said that on top of the 40% for 2016, it will accept annual 5% increases.
The union has not managed to convince the public that the sums that it is claiming are sustainable. They are sustainable. The 2018 Budget estimates give the total employment costs of nursery, primary and secondary schools at $3.3 billion.
A 40% increase therefore on the 2016 employment costs is therefore likely to only amount to about $1.5 billion. The government, despite lower revenues from public corporations, collected $9 billion dollars more so far this year than from the first half of 2017.
GuySuCo can no longer be the excuse. The government has dismissed more than 5,000 sugar workers, and therefore has no reason to provide the hefty subventions of the past few years. In fact, the government has floated a bond to raise more than US$150M to finance GuySuCo.
The money is there, and therefore it is surprising that the union is now saying that it is prepared to accept less than 40%. This is a position of weakness and it signals that the union is really not as prepared for the long haul as it claims it is.
There are two main risks which any union faces. The first is that once you call a strike, it is not easy to call it off, unless major concessions are made from the employers. The government is not budging. It has even refused a last-minute offer by the union to call off the strike in return for arbitration and no loss of benefits.
The second risk facing the union is that unless it delivers on its promises to the workers, it is going to implode.
The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) never recovered from calling off the 1999 strike. It has never called another because of what happened to the leadership when the time came to urge the workers to go back to work on a promise of arbitration. One union leader had to be escorted under guard out of the GPSU headquarters.
The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) is buckling under the pressure. And the government knows this. The Union in trying to reduce its demand is weakening its position. It is doing the same by saying that it is prepared to call off the strike in return for certain conditions.
The union has been protesting in the wrong places. The problem is not the Ministry of Education. The problem is the Ministry of Finance.
The die has been cast. The union cannot now go to the negotiating table – even if it is called to do so – from a position of weakness. It will lose credibility and negotiating muscle unless it strikes and shows that it can shut down the education sector.
There is division within teaching ranks. Many teachers cannot afford to strike. Their salaries are already small and many of them got house lots under the PPPC and have taken out mortgages. Many of them have loans on cars which have to be paid. Striking is not an option for many of them.
The union is now realizing how divided is its membership. There is also the additional problem of many of its members not wishing to be seen as striking against the present government.
Instead of panicking, the union should be rational. It should make an appeal to those trainee teachers and retirees which the Ministry has hinted can be hired during the strike. The GTU should call on these trainees and retirees to not be used as scabs.
If the union does not get what it wants from the government, and if its proposed industrial action fizzles, then the implication is that teachers will revolt against their union leadership. Either a new leadership will emerge, or the same one will be retained but will be alienated from the membership.

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