The herring master

Feb 16, 2024 Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – In July 23, the Stabroek News carried a report captioned, ‘President’s office, not ministry, deals with GTU multi-year pact – Manickchand.’

In that article, the newspaper quoted the Education Minister as saying, “As you are aware that the Ministry has never negotiated, it’s always been from a level of Office of the President.”

The government has never denied or refuted this report or position that it is the Office of the President that is responsible for negotiations on a multi-year wages package. Even when in an editorial of 12^th November 2023, the Stabroek News again said that, “It is not the Ministry of Education which deals with the matter of teachers’ wages and salaries, it is the Office of the President”, there was no denial by the government or the Vice President of this position.

But yesterday, the Vice President was cornered and rankled by Dennis Chabrol of Demerara Waves. Chabrol asked him whether instead of having to consider hybrid education as a response to a possible indefinite strike by the teachers, it would not be better to simply negotiate with the teacher’s union. Jagdeo began his answer by claiming that the union’s demands were unreasonable. This is a position which was first mentioned in this column and which has considerable merit. However, the fact that the Guyana Teachers’ Union proposal is unrealistic does not form the basis for not negotiating. Nor can it be a justification for not negotiating with the union. Jagdeo then went off on a long-winded diatribe about how much the government has done for teachers. He spoke about a 61% increases in the wage bill and asked whether there should be no consideration for sustainability. He did not mention that the Central Government wage bill is also being bloated by the thousands of part-time workers which the government has employed.

He even questioned what was going to happen should oil prices fall in the future. He asked how in such a situation government was going to fund its wages bill. Jagdeo then segued into arguing that the education is not suffering from a lack of resources. He forgot that no one was saying this: the contention is that the teachers, the backbone of the sector, are asking for better salaries.

Jagdeo totally circumvented the issue in contention: why in terms of salaries has the government refused to engage in collective bargaining with the recognised union for teachers in Guyana? Chabrol was not thrown off by Jagdeo’s histrionics about the unreasonableness of the union’s demands. He followed up by asking whether that was not what the negotiation process is about: to allow the government to outline its concerns and counter proposals. It was then Jagdeo got into a kerfuffle. Becoming very agitated, he said that this was what was happening and that the Education Ministry was in discussions with the union. Chabrol then cornered him by asking him as to whether it is not the Office of the President that was responsible for the wages negotiations and not the Ministry of Education.

After tying himself up in a knot, Jagdeo stated that the Ministry of Education was responsible for negotiations of all issues with the union. But this is not what the Minister of Education was quoted as saying since last year. And this is not the understanding of the union. Jagdeo cannot eat his cake and have it too. The fact of the matter is that the 6.5% wage increases were imposed by the government without any negotiations with the unions represented teachers and public servants. Jagdeo, however, is the master of ‘red herrings’. He wants the media to focus on the alleged lack of accountability by the union. He even threw in another red herring: something about the union rules not allowing the General Secretary to be a politician and General Secretary at the time. But those ‘red herrings’ are merely intended to divert attention from the issue that is at stake: the failure of the government to negotiate a multi-year wages and salaries agreement with the union. The government has not been keen to engage with the union because it has been able, until now to get away from doing so. And now it is becoming clear that Jagdeo is a major part of the problem. He seems to have forgotten that he was once a teacher. In 2018, he had supported the teachers’ strike during the rule of the APNU+AFC. How could that strike be right then and wrong now? But don’t dare ask the Vice President that. He comes from a fishing village and might well throw a shoal of red herrings into the mix.

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