Teachers back on strike from today

May 09, 2024 News

– as Govt. holds out that salary talks will deal with 2024 onwards

Kaieteur News – Despite the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) intent on resuming their strike action on today, the government on Wednesday reiterated that it will only be engaging the union on salary matters from 2024 and onwards.

This is according to a letter disseminated by the Ministry of Education’s Permanent Secretary, Shanielle Hoosein-Outar, on Wednesday, which was addressed to the GTU’s President, Dr. Mark Lyte.

GTU had said on Tuesday that it had sent a letter to the Ministry notifying them of their decision on resuming the strike action. In response, the Permanent Secretary stated: “We are quite surprised at the content of your letter and the actions proposed. As indicated before, the Government of Guyana stands ready to continue engaging the Guyana Teachers’ Union on the multi-year agreement from 2024 onwards.”

On Tuesday, via a virtual press conference, the Union’s President had said that since the 29-day strike held in February, the Union was unable to have discussions with the government on the multi-year proposals for increases in salaries. It was reported that the multi-year proposal covers a period of five years, 2019 to 2023. The Union had proposed a 25 percent salary increase in 2019 and a 20 percent increase for 2020-2023.

In a statement back in March, the ministry’s Chief Education Officer (CEO), Saddam Hussain had maintained the Ministry of Education’s position on the GTU multi-year agreement has not changed adding that “any multi-year agreement must start from the year 2024, not retroactively.”

“We have heard from the Ministry of Education that they are not prepared and allowed to negotiate for the 2019-2023 [period] for which we have submitted a proposal; in fact, they have indicated that they are prepared to negotiate 2024 and current. A position that the union will not support and agreed to hence having taken the matter relating to the cutting of salaries and the remittance of dues to the court and allowing that process to take place, the GTU would have consulted its members on the next step,” Lyte explained in his press conference.

Speaking of the next step, Lyte announced that the members of the Union had decided several weeks ago to resume the strike action. So here we are making an official announcement that because of the absence of collective bargaining and an attempt on the part of the government, the Ministry of Education to address the condition under which teachers work especially as it relates to salaries, we are here to announce that on Thursday, May 9, strike action will resume in all education districts all across Guyana,” he had announced.

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