Teachers face a difficult choice

Jan 31, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Teachers are not as badly paid as some make it out to be. Prior to the 6.5% salary increase announced for last year, there were some adjustments made to teachers’ salaries.

For example, a graduate Senior Mistress/ Head of Department moved from $243,069 to $262,917. A graduate Senior Mistress in the hinterland earned, around 243,076.

When you couple this with the increased allowances for academic certification and duty-free allowances on motor, then senior teachers are earning far more than some senior public servants. And let us not forget that teachers have 12 weeks at home during the academic year – two weeks at Easter, two weeks at Christmas and eight weeks during July and August – paid leave during school vacations.

But one assumes that the basis for the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) calling a strike has more to do with how the government has ignored the union request for negotiations. But this has been the style of the PPP/C administration and it is unfortunate that the PPP/C continues to adopt the position that because certain unions are perceived as being in opposition to the government, the government will not negotiate with them and simply impose salary increases.

The strike weapon in Guyana is no longer potent. In 1999, the Guyana Public Service Union called a strike against the Janet Jagan administration. The strike lasted for 57 days and was accompanied by some tragic incidents when a political party used its then muscle to create a reign of terror in its attempt to bring the country to a halt. The violence of that period was one of the contributing factors that undermined the credibility of the strike.

But following the appointment of the Armstrong Tribunal, public servants enjoyed their highest increases ever.  The arbitration tribunal, whose findings were binding, awarded a 31.06% increase for 1999 and a 26.66% increase for 2000.

But the PPP/C still had the final say. It broke the back of the union, decimated its membership and even approached the courts to rule on the legality of automatic deductions from all workers in the public service. The result was that the GPSU suffered high financial losses from which it has never recovered.

Since then, APNU+AFC and the PPP/C governments have openly flouted the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the GPSU. Like APNU+AFC did, the PPP government has arbitrary imposed salary increases on public servants.

The GPSU cannot do much about this because they lack the muscle needed to bring the public service to standstill. The nurses are one of the remaining fortresses of support and as is known, nurses are a part of the emergency services and not permitted to strike.

The Guyana Teachers Union also cannot launch an effective strike. They may shut down some schools for a little while but when it comes to education, public pressure, divisions with the ranks of teachers and fear of victimization may force many teachers not to take industrial action.

The union also does not have the means to support a strike action.  Public servants and teachers know that they are not likely to be paid for the days they are on strike, as this acts as a major disincentive for strike action.

It is suspected that the strike action which the Guyana Teachers’ Union is calling on February 5th is merely to test the support that the union enjoys. But if this support is not forthcoming, then the union will be left demoralized because it really would have lost a major weapon at its disposal to press for salary increases for workers.

The government has not been inactive. The adjustments which the government made to the salaries and allowances of certain grades of teachers form part of what is viewed as a divide-and-rule tactic by the PPP/C government. Not all categories benefitted from the adjustment and so there is likely to be divisions over strike action.

The PPP/C is in no mood to negotiate with the Guyana Teachers Union. The government perceives that the union as being an Opposition union and will not negotiate with it unless it is forced to do so.

And to negotiate with that union would mean that it would have to enter into negotiations with the Guyana Public Service Union. And that is a no-no in so far as the PPP/C is concerned.

What will happen on February 5th is essentially a face-off between the government and the union. Unless the union can force a major and nation-wide withdrawal of the labour of teachers, its goose is cooked.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Academic, administration, graduate Senior Mistress, Peeping Tom, teachers

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