GTU’s concerns over salary increase finally addressed

Jan 23, 2020 News

– confident other matters getting needed attention

By the time a new government takes office and a fresh budget is passed, some public school teachers should become eligible for a two percent outstanding difference on their most recent pay increase.

GTU President, Mr. Mark Lyte

The outstanding sum arose from a miscalculation of the percentage pay increase owed to some teachers as part a multi-year remuneration package for them which was inked between government and the Guyana Teachers Union [GTU] towards the end of 2018.
The union had in fact raised concern with the Ministry of Education about the sum computed for its membership but no resolution was forthcoming during the past year.
This publication understands that the union and the Ministry had decided to amicably have the matter resolved which saw the expertise of the Auditor General being sought. This development was confirmed by GTU President, Mr. Mark Lyte.
Lyte in an invited comment, said, “Both sides agreed that we would approach the Auditor General with a neutral person, along with one we had and they did another calculation.”
At a meeting held between the stakeholders and in the presence of the Auditor General on the first school day of the term [January 6, 2020], Lyte said it was asserted that the union’s computation concern was legitimate and therefore should be rectified.
However, while the government side has accepted that error, Lyte disclosed that the Auditor General did point out that “government will not be able to honour the payment of the difference until after a new budget is passed.
“We have to tell our members that the situation has been rectified but the payment will have to be after budget because the AG explained that government is operating under a non-budget period.”
Lyte has called this development “another goal that has been settled.”
But there are other matters of concern that the union has under the spotlight. Lyte is hopeful that these will be addressed shortly given the perceived commitment of the Education Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Alfred King.
“During the latter part of last year, in December, we met the new PS and few of the education officials at the Ministry of Education and we put forward our concerns as they relate to several outstanding things to be done in relation to the last multi-year agreement [of 2018],” Lyte explained.
Currently, there are about six issues left to be ironed out in the agreement, which interestingly expired soon after it was inked.
Among the issues yet to be addressed is the placement of teachers on debunching scales.
“We were able to discuss that and the Ministry promised that the costing and everything for the debunching should take effect…[it] is before the Ministry of Finance and they are going to have that settled within the first quarter of 2020,” said Lyte.
Acknowledging the colossal task ahead, he added, “Debunching is a large scale issue but I am aware that the effort is being made to get those resolved and the fact that we are now preparing to enter into new discussions indicates that they are pushing to have it sorted.”
By virtue of the expiration of the agreement in effect, the union early last year approached the Ministry to negotiation a new multi-year salary package. That process has been limping along.
The GTU President is even nevertheless confident that all of its concerns will be addressed without the initiation of industrial action, a tactic it was forced to resort to, to force Government’s hand at negotiating the 2018 multi-year agreement.
“Since PS Alfred has been there, he has made certain commitments and we have been seeing them come through. He has been rigorously engaging the Ministry of Finance to get things resolved.
“For example the outstanding $10,000 for Special Needs teachers, they [teachers] are expected to get that at the end of this month and that will mean some teachers will collect a tidy sum for the four-year [2016-2019] period that the payment was due,” Lyte explained.
Another matter that the union president is eager to see implemented is the way being cleared for Special Needs teachers to benefit from promotions that were earlier issued. As he shared his optimism that issues of concerns to the teaching fraternity will be addressed, Lyte shared yet another that has been remedied.
“Teachers who were employed 2016 and after, they were getting salaries of the previous year that has been fixed and those teachers will be placed in their correct scales this year,” said Lyte. He added, “Several things that have been implemented have given us confidence about the other things. We have seen several things happening in relation to some of the outstanding matters.”