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GTU to announce way forward at press conference today
– in wake of govt.’s failure to rescind appointment of Professor Lucas
Even as seven days elapsed yesterday following a threat to resume strike action, officials of the Guyana Teachers Union [GTU] were meeting the membership in Linden.
GTU President, Mark Lyte
This publication understands that the union has been soliciting input from its membership to decide on how to retaliate to the Ministry of Social Protection’s decision to appoint Professor Leyland Lucas, to head an arbitration panel to negotiate a salary package for public school teachers.
Yesterday, the GTU President said that there has been no development to suggest that government was prepared to revisit its decision to name Professor Lucas as chairman of the arbitration panel.
According to Lyte, the union will be officially announcing its decision today at a press conference at its Woolford Avenue, Georgetown office.
Last week the GTU threatened 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.
This development comes on the heels of a meeting between the GTU and the Ministry of Education, which was hosted by the Labour Department of the Ministry of Social Protection.
The meeting was intended to serve as a means to amicably and swiftly resolve the difficulties faced by the concerned parties to set up the arbitration panel.
Both the Education Ministry and the GTU had failed to agree on a chairperson to head the panel and were yet to name one nominee each. Moreover, the Education Ministry had written to the Social Protection Ministry to intervene to resolve the dilemma.
Lyte disclosed that at the meeting last week “the GTU attended…for the sole purpose of naming our nominee for the Arbitration Tribunal.” He, however, disclosed that the meeting was interrupted by Minister within the Social Protection Ministry, Keith Scott, to name university lecturer, Professor Lucas, chairman of the panel.
But according to Lyte, the union did not approve of this move by the Minister and therefore Objected, noting that “it was premature to be doing that at this point in time. As a matter of fact the union highlighted that if this same Minister was proactive a year and a half ago, we would not have been in the position that we are at now.”
Supporting Lyte’s disclosure was the union’s General Secretary, Ms. Coretta McDonald. McDonald, in a letter to the Chief Labour Officer, which was carbon copied to the Education Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Ms. Adele Clarke, highlighted that “the GTU continues to advocate that the Labour Department within the Ministry of Social Protection headed by Minister Keith Scott cannot be trusted to arbitrarily nominate a chairman for the Arbitration Tribunal.”
“The Union’s position was made clear from the first day of conciliatory talks between the two parties. The Chief Labour Officer was informed that the Union’s presence was out of courtesy since we had lost all confidence in the Department of Labour headed by Minister Keith Scott,” McDonald added.
According to the General Secretary, the Union had long confirmed that the Department of Labour was not an unbiased party to the negotiations due to the utterances of both Social Protection Ministers – Amna Ally and Keith Scott.
Further, she noted, the utterances of Minister Scott to the media that “teachers are selfish and uncaring” cannot make him an unbiased Minister given his earlier involvement and subsequent media outburst.
“The Minister’s decision to appoint and attempt to introduce a chairman to GTU at the meeting of September 25, 2018 will go down as another endeavour to bully the Union into accepting someone whose political and employment agenda cannot be ascertain,” said McDonald.
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