Teachers feel “worthless, undervalued”- GTU

Nov 13, 2021 News

…MoE ignores request for 20% salary increase

Kaieteur News – President of the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), Mark Lyte says that teachers feel “worthless” and “undervalued” as the Ministry of Education (MoE) continues to ignore their proposal for an increase to teachers’ pay.

President of the Guyana Teachers Union, Mark Lyte

According to Lyte, the Union recently submitted a proposal for the fourth time and there has still been no response from the Ministry in this regard.
“This is the fourth copy of our proposal…there has been no movement in terms of when we will be called to the table to discuss. It makes us feel worthless and undervalued because while the Government keeps talking about the value of teachers and the importance of the system, the treatment says something different,” he reasoned.
The Union head elaborated that not only has the Union reached out to the Ministry, but also the President in their desperate plea for a response. He argued, “We keep submitting documents, writing the President and no one responds to you. It says a lot about our value as teachers”.
Lyte noted that the Union on Monday visited the Cinderella county of Essequibo where teachers there vented their frustration over Government’s silence on their pay cheques. In fact, he detailed that the Essequibo teachers clearly stated that they would be reluctant to accept less than a 15 percent increase in their salaries, and are in fact ready to “take action” should Government not align their plans.
“The increase that the Government is talking about no one knows how much would be given to teachers, but on the ground they were saying that if they give less than 15 percent they are going to take some action,” the Union President said.
He was keen to note that this area is believed to be one of Government’s strong areas.
Nevertheless, Lyte told Kaieteur News that he was surprised President Irfaan Ali made no mention of public servants’ wages in his address to the nation on Friday afternoon.
“Today’s presentation was actually a charade to say to our public servants that we have shared out a lot of money, pushing cost of living, so therefore there may not be much left, so we are still discussing how much we can give you. I was watching because I was hoping that something would’ve been said in this regard as it is the end of the year,” he pointed out.
The GTU in its proposal is requesting a 20 percent increase to teachers pay, and are also seeking to iron out matters relating to gratuity for its members, additional duty-free concessions, and the granting of allowances, among others.
In 2018, thousands of teachers took to the streets, as they protested Government’s sloth in increasing their salaries and addressing their allowances.
Among other things, the Union had proposed a 40 percent across the board increase for teachers for 2016 and five percent for each of the additional four years [2017-2020].
But instead of countering the union’s offer with an affordable percentage, Government, even after establishing a Task Force to negotiate on its behalf and which accepted the union’s proposal, decided to offer teachers a ball-park figure of a $700 million salary increase for 2018 and an additional $200 million for de-bunching monies owed to teachers since 2011.
The stalemate between the two parties ended on the fourth day in the second week of the strike action initiated by the union, following failed talks for salary and non-salary benefits for teachers.

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