The teachers’ union stands its grounds

Feb 24, 2024 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), Mr. Mark Lyte, had a mouthful to say in defense of striking teachers, in calling on the PPPC Government to act accordingly. According to Mr. Lyte, the PPPC Government knows what it has to do for the striking teachers, just like it has done in the past, when there were different demands to be met. Further, the government knows what it should do now to get those hungry teachers on the streets back into the classroom.

“We would like government to address the financial matters relating to teachers’ salary. That is the general cry and the general cry has come about because of the hike in cost of living, our teachers are complaining.”

The cost of living is crippling, and not just for teachers, but for all those workers in this country, who only have their base wages and salaries to live on monthly and not any helpful allowance. Simply recall the figures published recently about ministers perched on the high side of the local economic ladder. We can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that not one of them knows what it is to be poor in a daily paralyzing cost of living regime. Think of the difference that one of those more than half a dozen monthly allowances could make, particularly the mid-tier ones, such as for entertainment or a gardener. The monthly rental allowance for some PPPC Government ministers is more than the annual pay for ordinary Guyanese, including entry level teachers. This is not about imbalance, but about what is grotesque. It now obvious that Guyana is a tale of two vastly different societies: one that enjoys all the lavish opulence in what is a budding oil superpower, while the other, the masses in the population, has to manage is existence in a virtually impoverished condition.

One of the defenses advanced by the PPPC Government is where is the money going to be found. This is strange, indeed, for in the face of the trend of record annual budgets, the government has still hustled to parliament to ram through supplements to the budget. In one instance, this was done before the first half of the year had elapsed, and the supplementary tool is one that has become well-used and well-worn. But today, with teachers striking, and schools hanging on through skeleton staff stopgap arrangements, the government is declaring itself to be stuck about what it is able to do, and what its options are. The debt ceiling has been raised, and most of the 2023 oil money is to be withdrawn, but leaders in the PPPC Government are claiming poverty. They can build everything in sight to satisfy a number of considerations (most of them not wholesome), fill some fancy dreams, yet refuse to come to grips with the reality of Guyanese living on the edge of poverty, and often hungry.

The irony of living under the economic yoke of this PPPC Government and its callous leaders is that the cries of teachers, and the voices of public servants, are occurring in an economy that is the envy of the world. No other country has numbers to match those of Guyana, but the small Guyanese worker cannot see his way nor find her balance. We have a suggestion for government leaders. Since the suggestion by the GTU’s Lyte is likely to fall on deaf ears, there is still that $7B amount budgeted and approved, and which now sits idly in the government’s hand. The official position was that it was a sort of backup fund for emergency situations. We point to the striking teachers, and assert that if a situation of urgency is required, then there is one that suffices.

Though it troubles to table this, it has become increasingly clear that the government is not committed to an honest resolution of the teachers’ strike. The PPPC Government seems more focused on teaching the teachers of Guyana a lesson on who has the power, and who is determined to bring them to their knees. By any means, be such by any hostile action, or by any low and rusted weapon that can be dug up and brandished.

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General, Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), Mr. Mark Lyte, President, striking

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