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Court to rule in teachers’ salary cut case next Friday
Lawyers and representatives of the GTU following the hearing of the case at the High Court on Thursday
Kaieteur News – Justice Sandil Kissoon is set to rule next Friday in the case brought against the Government of Guyana by the Guyana Teachers’ Union over its decision to deduct money from the salaries of striking teachers and its decision to stop remittance of dues to the union.
On Wednesday, attorneys representing the interest of the teachers- Senior Counsel, Roysdale Forde and Darren Wade made their final submissions maintaining that the teachers had a right to strike, and their salaries should not be affected. Both Wade and Forde, also argued that it was discriminatory for the Government to halt the deduction of union dues from the salaries of teachers, when no such decision was taken in the case of other unions whenever their workers went on strike.
Forde told reporters at the end of the hearing that the essence of his argument established the principle of no work; no pay was inapplicable to Guyana. “Secondly, my argument was to establish that the role and functioning of the Chief Labour Officer and the Minister of Labour aggravated the circumstances which led to the strike,” Forde said.
The lawyer noted that following the breakdown in talks between the GTU and the Ministry of Education, the union sought the intervention of the Chief Labour Officer for the initiation of conciliation and later arbitration, but to no avail. “I believe that the evidence which we received from the Chief Education Officer clearly establishes that the Government acted on numerous instances in a dictatorial and unilateral manner…,” Forde said.
Attorney General, Anil Nandlall SC had however argued that the proceedings filed by the GTU are incurably detective. He held that the principle of “no work, no pay” is applicable. The Attorney General told the Court that while teachers, like other categories of workers, have the freedom to strike, they do not have the right to strike, and therefore, they should have to face the consequences of their action. “I believe that I demonstrated with great clarity, on examining the constitution, the 1966 Constitution, the 1980 Constitution, the 2001 Constitution and all the changes that have taken place in relation to trade unions, and in relation to rights to strike and freedom to strike that there is no right to strike in Guyana, there is a freedom to strike. The Constitution has a right to demonstrate, a right to assemble and a freedom to strike, so the draftsman using language differently. Then you have the right of the employer. The Constitution also protects the employer’s right to property, so how could you advocate that you have a right to pay when you have not worked,” the Attorney General said.
On the issue of the union dues not being deducted on behalf of the union, the Attorney General said it was an executive decision taken by the Government, and the Court cannot intervene in such a matter, since there was no contractual agreement. He noted that the remittance of the union dues to the GTU was done on a voluntary basis.
He said, “It was a courtesy extended to the Union by the Executive. Matters that are within the remit of the executive cannot be reviewed by the Court.” “And that is why in the GPSU matter, for example, with Nanda Gopaul, they did not go for judicial review because the voluntary service of the Government in offering this facility to the Union is not grounded in contract, it is not grounded in law, it is the Government, as part of its policy decided to extend this service to the Union voluntarily and anything that is voluntarily done can be terminated voluntarily,” Nandlall had said.
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