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Govt. denying teachers’ salary increase during COVID period heartless – Hughes
Chairman of the AFC, Cathy Hughes and Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo
Kaieteur News – The government of Guyana’s refusal to grant a salary increase to teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic is “heartless”, Chairman of the Alliance for Change (AFC) Cathy Hughes said on Friday at a press conference.
Hughes told reporters that the AFC is deeply concerned about the matter. The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) has proposed a salary increase for the period 2019-2023. The AFC representative said that though teachers were not physically in school during the period to which schools were closed during the pandemic, they were tasked with finding innovative ways to ensure that learning continued.
“Firstly, COVID did not become a major health crisis issue until early 2020 and more so this stance is deeply flawed because it overlooks the tireless efforts of our educators during the pandemic. Despite unprecedented challenges our teachers exhibited remarkable resilience adapting and innovating to ensure that learning continued. To dismiss their efforts and to deny them fair compensation based on this pretext is not only unjust but fundamentally undermines the principles of fairness and equality,” the AFC Chairman said.
The Member of Parliament (MP) stressed that Justice Sandil Kissoon ordered there be talks between the two parties “to resolve the issues stemming from the recent strike.”
Despite the court’s order “Yet we find ourselves unable to meet a mutually acceptable settlement.”
“It seems as if this government thinks it’s above the law and will look for any loophole to get its way without considering the plight of the people while some sport Louis Vuitton bags. That the government is refusing to consider the years 2019-2023 in the settlement, citing Covid-19 as justification is utter nonsense,” she said.
Hughes continued: “Furthermore, is this government suggesting that cost of living did not increase during this period or is it so myopic and detached from reality that it cannot come to terms with the fact that in order for our teachers to continue to serve their salaries have to be adjusted as costs go up. Inflation spares no one, and our teachers, like all citizens, felt its impact acutely.”
She highlighted that for the government, “To suggest that the budget cannot accommodate the retroactive payments while only yesterday the government withdrew some $250 million US dollars from the Natural Resource Fund without adequate accountability, is not only a gross betrayal of trust but highlights the lack of concern this government continues to display towards its citizens whom it claims to care about – but actions speak louder than words.”
President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) Dr. Mark Lyte has threatened to return to the street if the Government of Guyana fails to return to the talks with the Union on the proposed multi-year salary increases for teachers.
However, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, while speaking at a press conference on Thursday said the Union’s call for retroactive salary increases for the years 2019 – 2023 is “unacceptable”.
The VP maintained that the 2024 Budget does not have the fiscal space to facilitate a retroactive payment of salary increases to teachers for the years 2019 to 2023.
“What the Union wants cannot be accommodated by the fiscal framework. They want us to sign a multi-year agreement retroactively, a multi-year agreement retroactive to 2019, and then also address 2% from 2017, and another 2% from 2018. So, they want us to go back seven years back to address wages and salary issues that were not addressed under APNU,” the Vice President said.
Jagdeo posited that any decision to offer retroactive salary increases for the period requested by the GTU could result in other categories of public servants making similar demands.
“If you reopen that for teachers, you have to, out of fairness, you have to ensure that every other category would get the same retroactive increase. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise; we can’t sustain that in the budget,” the Vice President reasoned.
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