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Presidential leadership lacking in teachers’ salary dispute – Jagdeo
…Says Granger should staple Keith Scott’s mouth
Striking teachers before arbitration.
As the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) threatens to resume strike action, Opposition leader, Bharrat Jagdeo said there is need for the David Granger administration to demonstrate leadership to resolve the dispute over salaries.
Jagdeo stated that the disagreement with teachers is an indication of the President’s failure to address issues definitely. He stated that the Government has not made definite decisions on sugar, oil and gas and other important industries.
Why doesn’t the President step in and address these things? He is just allowing the industrial climate to deteriorate and the bad blood to proliferate; the suspicions to be heightened that the teachers are going to be duped again or treated unfairly,” Jagdeo stated.
GTU is prepared to mobilize its membership to resume strike action if the Ministry of Social Protection moves forward with its decision to impose its appointee to chair the arbitration panel to negotiate a salary increase for public school teachers.
The resumed strike action could commence within five days.
GTU is protesting the decision by Minister with responsibility for Labour, Keith Scott, to unilaterally appoint Professor Leyland Lucas. The Union rejected the appointment of Lucas, pointing out that legally, the Minister needed the Union’s approval before making the appointment.
Jagdeo stated that Scott does not understand his role and called on the President to take action.
“Why doesn’t he [Granger] just put some staples on the mouth of Keith Scott; and just keep his mouth close for a while?”
The Opposition leader pointed to statements Scott made against Indigenous People and more recently his reference to striking teachers as “uncaring and selfish”. Scott later apologised following public outcry.
“This calls for leadership on the part of the President and the Cabinet. So they are allowing it to deteriorate again. The teachers went back (to the classrooms) in good faith because they believe the promises of the Government.
“You have the teachers back at work; taking care of our children. Do everything to keep them there, not try to impose something on them where you don’t even have the authority to do so,” Jagdeo noted.
On September 6, teachers ended their nine-day strike action to ink a Memorandum of Agreement with the Ministry of Education to move the dispute to Arbitration
Meanwhile, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) yesterday condemned what it termed as the clear intention of the Ministry of Social Protection to railroad the composition of the Arbitration Tribunal… “The attempts led, from all appearances, by Junior Social Protection Minister, Keith Scott to impose a Chairman of the Tribunal is yet another manifestation of the Ministry’s and Administration’s attempt to undermine the teachers and union struggle,” FITUG stated.
According to the union grouping, the move is completely dismaying and utterly reprehensible that the Ministry, which is charged with upholding workers’ rights and conditions has shed all pretenses and exposed, glaringly, its partiality in this matter.
“The Minister, from our point of view, is far removed from his boundary and has gotten himself in uncharted waters from which he has, in our view, no justification to enter. It seems clearly that he has misunderstood his role and is causing serious damage in its wake,” FITUG stated.
The Federation contends that the Government should urgently engage in damage control and seek to correct the several missteps it has made.
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