Special committee to review GTU’s newest salary increase proposal

Mar 02, 2019 News

A special committee has been appointed to review a multi-year salary increase proposal submitted early last month to the Ministry of Education by the Guyana Teachers Union [GTU]. This is according to information released by the Ministry yesterday.
On February 5, 2019, the union submitted its proposal intended to cater to increases for a three-year period [2019 – 2021] for its 10,000-odd membership.
GTU President, Mark Lyte, had said that the union was hoping for timely feedback from the Education Ministry. In fact he shared his expectation that the feedback would be forthcoming no later than this month end.
In response to the proposal, the Ministry said that a high level committee on public education has been reactivated to examine the GTU proposal.

GTU President, Mr. Mark Lyte.

Additionally, it noted that an invitation has been extended to the union to attend a meeting in the second week of March, 2019 to initiate the negotiation process.
In its proposal the union is aiming for, among other things, a 25 percent across the board increase for public school teachers. The union is also proposing conditions for the re-employment of retired teachers; the need for grants for schools which are often subjected to inadequate stock; incentive for teachers with additional qualifications and those qualified in areas of physical education and special needs education.
“Some of the things we have fine-tuned. We still have things like duty-free concessions, continuation of the Whitley Council [leave]…We are proposing adjustment to Whitley Council; we have clothing allowances; we have house lots for teachers still on the cards and we do have other things like class size issues.
“The class size for special needs schools, we are requesting a smaller number or in cases where the number cannot be smaller we are recommending a teacher’s aide for the teachers so at all times there will be two persons to the class,” said the GTU President.
The proposal, ahead of being submitted, had its content approved by the membership of the union.
Lyte noted that although the union had initially planned to submit the proposal much earlier, a decision was taken at the level of its General Council to ensure that its 10,000-odd membership from across the country had the opportunity to give their input.
The last [three-year] agreement the Union had with the Education Ministry expired at the end of last year shortly after it was signed. This was owing to the slothful approach taken by the ruling administration to deal with the union’s proposal which was submitted since the end of 2015.
A fall-out between Government and the union had resulted in industrial action before an amicable resolution was eventually realised.
Given the recent experience, Lyte said, “I believe that both parties have learnt from the previous experience on how we would want to go forward. I hope that those lessons will serve to propel some urgency with the whole process.”

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