What exactly is being mediated?

Mar 03, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – It is difficult to comment on the court ordered mediation in the case brought by the Guyana Teachers’ Union against the government. This is all the more so because news reports have not been clear as to what exactly is supposed to be mediated.

Mediation is a dispute-settlement mechanism. It is used to resolve disagreements and differences. Mediation helps to avoid litigation or a protracted legal trial. It is usually a process to which parties voluntary agree to enter into.

However, last November, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales ruled, “Courts can lawfully stay proceedings for, or order, the parties to engage in a non-court-based dispute resolution process provided that the order made did not impair the very essence of the claimant’s right to proceed to a judicial hearing, and was proportionate to achieving the legitimate aim of settling the dispute fairly, quickly and at reasonable cost.”

But what exactly is the dispute which is supposed to have led to the local Court to have ordered mediation?

It will be recalled that the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) took the government to court to stop the government from deducting sums for the days on which the teachers were on strike, and secondly from refusing to perform the agency function of deducing the union dues from teachers’ salaries.

Both of these issues are matters of law. They require a legal pronouncement as to what is permissible under law. This would suggest that these disputes are not necessarily amenable to mediation.

Disputes and difference relating to what is lawful are best settled through legal adjudication. It is difficult to envision how much success can be achieved by mediation on the subject of whether teachers should be paid for the time they were on strike. Or whether the government can arbitrarily refuse to perform the agency functions it was previously performing on behalf of the GTU.

One therefore has to assume that the mediation process concerns the proximate cause of the two disputes that are before the court. That cause would appear to be the strike called by the Guyana Teachers’ Union.

But the strike itself was called because the GTU felt that the government was ignoring the need for negotiations on the government’s demands for a multi-year agreement were not being entertained. Now if this is the subject matter of mediation, there are good prospects for the Court-ordered mediation to succeed.

The union wants negotiations. The government now claims that nothing is off the table in relation to the now aborted engagements which were taking place between the union and the Ministry of Education.

As such, all it would need for resolution is for the government to agree to negotiations on a multi-year agreement under the existing framework. Once this done, it paves the way for the teachers to end their strike and for a full resumption of classes.

Except that the teachers’ union have preconditions for a return by teachers to the classroom. Among those demands are the issues before the court in relation to payment during the strike and for the restoration of the deduction of union dues.

There would appear to be room for compromise: teachers agreeing to return to work in return for the government rescinding its decision not to perform agency functions relating to the collection of union dues. But whether there will be agreement on payment for those on strike is something which the government will seriously have to weigh given the precedent it will have for future industrial disputes.

It is in no one’s interest for the present impasse between the union and the government to continue. The teachers are out on the picket line. Students are being deprived of learning. Parents are concerned about the supervision of their children in school and the fact that not much learning is taking place. The government is under pressure to resolve the issue. Everyone is losing as result of what is taking place.

This is sufficient enough to justify a court-imposed mediation process. As such, the mediation process needs to be given a chance to work. But at the same time, the public is entitled to know precisely just what precisely is or are the dispute/ disputes that are being mediated.

Is it the subject matter of the court case? Or is it the cause of the teacher’s strike?

(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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• Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Guyana Teachers Union, litigation, mediated, Peeping Tom

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