The ball is now in the Court of the teachers and their union

Mar 01, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The government has offered a compromise to the teachers. But in the height and heat of protest action, the teachers do not seem to have recognized the offer.

At a press conference two weeks ago, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said that the Ministry of Education is empowered to negotiate all issues relating to the teachers. Previously, the Ministry of Education had contended that it was the Office of the President that was dealing with salaries.

The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) and the Ministry of Education were previously in discussions on benefits. According to the Ministry, progress was being made when the strike was called.

Now that the Vice President has said clearly that the Ministry of Education is empowered to deal with the salaries issue, the GTU should add the multi-year salaries issue to the agenda of its now aborted talks with the Ministry of Education.

Instead of doing this however, the GTU has set four conditions for resuming talks. These conditions are that, one, the Ministry must resume the monthly deduction of union dues from teachers’ salaries; second that no teacher must lose pay for days on strike; third, the Ministry of Education should present a counter proposal to the GTU so that talks can begin from that standpoint; and fourth should engage meaningfully with the union.

The first two conditions are sub judice. The third condition is problematic because the union has submitted preposterous proposals for salary increases which cannot form the basis of negotiations. The fourth condition, meaningful engagement, should be assessed based of the outcome of talks. The record does suggest that the Ministry of Education has been engaged meaningfully with the unions on non-salary issues.

On the issue of the government submitting a counter proposal, the union must take cognizance of two things. The first is that it is the union’s obligation to present a proposal which can be the subject of negotiations; it is not for the Ministry of Education to present any counter proposal since there were never any negotiations on a multi-year agreement. As such, it is for the union to modify its ridiculous demands for massive wage increases dating back to 2019.

Second, the union must appreciate that its demands have implications for the wider public sector. At present, trainee teachers at Cyril Potter are receiving a stipend that is higher than the salary of new entrants to the public service. The trainees are said to be receiving $90,000 per month up from $10,000. Trainee nurses are not receiving anywhere near what trainee teachers are receiving.

What then is to prevent an entry level public servant from deciding that it is better to leave his or her public service job and register as a trainee teacher and receive a higher pay for studying at Cyril Potter than he or she would have received as a messenger or office assistant in a government Ministry?

According to the Ministry, a trained teacher receives more than $200,000 per month. This is higher than the salaries of persons within the public service who have been on the job for years. For the teachers to now demand a compounded increase of more than 150% is to take the salaries of a trained teacher to about $450,000 per month which is not even the amount that is paid to very senior police officers. The union’s original proposals are therefore a non-starter for negotiations.

While unrealistic proposal should not preclude the government from speaking with the teachers’ union, unrealistic and preposterous salary proposals cannot be expected to generate any meaningful outcomes. The union therefore must pare its demands since it will have ripple effects across the economy.  If teachers are paid what their union is asking for, how much will your maid or handyman now demand? Public servants, nurses and all others will demand similar treatment and this will make the central government wage bill unsustainable.

Teachers deserve better pay. The government has long been in the wrong in imposing wage increases in violation of the collective bargaining agreement.  But those ridiculous amounts that the union is demanding cannot be taken seriously.

A better approach rather than across-the-board percentages is to stipulate minimum salary scales. What should a trained teacher be receiving each month as a minimum?

What should a headmistress be receiving every month at the minimum? This exercise should be done for the various categories of teachers. It will allow for a more reasonable and realistic proposal from the union.

Compromise is needed from both sides. The Vice President now empowered the Ministry of Education to engage in negotiations. Whether he has such authority is another issue. But the teachers should assume that he does. The ball is now in the union’s court to compromise and to engage with the Ministry of Education, free of those preconditions which it recently set.

(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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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Ministry of Education, Peeping Tom, Union, Vice President

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