Teachers back on streets

May 14, 2024 News

Scenes from the strike.

…as union, ministry lock in conciliation talks

Kaieteur News – Teachers on Monday hit the streets as they continue to press government for salary increases encompassing a multi-year agreement from 2019-2023. And while the educators were on the streets officials of the Guyana Teacher’s Union (GTU) and the Ministry of Education met with the Chief Labour Officer in conciliation talks to hammer out terms for the ending of the strike and a way forward. The meeting did not yield a settlement on Monday and the two sides will resume today with the Ministry of Labour officials to discuss the matter.

“So we will return tomorrow (today) to further discuss and hopefully sign off on the terms of resumption. We will return to deal with that from 10:30. It’s a document that we were willing to put together, we had drafted it right in the room and both parties had to come back with a position as to whether we agree on the terms stated in the document,” President of the GTU Dr. Mark Lyte said.

Lyte explained that “Once there is a strike there is what we call terms of resumption that both sides will have to agree to so the Union will put forward some terms the ministry would put forward some terms and then both sides would have to agree on those terms so that it can be enacted. Unfortunately we haven’t come to a full agreement on it that’s why we will meet again tomorrow morning.”

The Ministry officials after the meeting.

General Secretary of the Union, Coretta McDonald was also contacted and she said that, “we have not reached anywhere yet with regards to our terms of resumption because there are still issues that are bothering both sides so we have not been able to sign off on the document as yet.” When asked if the multi-year agreement the Union wants from 2019-2023 was settled, McDonald said: “that is the period that we are having the difficulty with.”

Meanwhile, out on the streets teachers assembled outside the Ministry of Labour armed with placards which had numerous messages written on them. This is the second strike for the year as the previous one ended after 29 days. The teachers are holding out that they are not going to back down until the ministry agrees to their requests.

Sir Randy Mingo told this publication that government’s treatment of teachers is unfair. He said that, “This is unfair, all they have to do is just negotiate with us and let the teachers be paid. From 2024 is unacceptable. We are asking from 2019-2023 because we deserve it.” A number of other teachers echoed his sentiments. Another teacher said that, “I don’t understand why they are making this seems so hard. Let’s meet and agree, get paid and we will go back to the classroom everyone is happy.”

On Friday last, Lyte had said that they were ready to go to arbitration over the stalled salary talks. The disclosure was made during a press conference at the Union’s headquarters on Woolford Avenue. Dr. Lyte was asked to what extent the union is willing to go in pursuing the grievance procedure; given that the government has refused to discuss the timeframe they requested the collective bargaining agreement. “While the Union is ready and willing to submit itself to arbitration, we do not know whether the government is prepared to go in that direction, because that process will allow for a neutral person to be selected and agreed on by both parties, who will decide on whether there is any ground for teachers to be given an increase salary and how much,” the GTU president said.

Further, Dr. Lyte said that “Conciliation could have happened”. He reminded that the GTU had written the Chief Labour Officer and copied the Minister of Labour “and all we got was a correspondence saying, there was no need for conciliation”. “So I am not sure whether the Ministry is prepared to go that way and government I should say. But we are ready not to go to conciliation, we are ready to go to arbitration,” he added. The GTU head said that the Union has shared its grievance memorandum with the public and there are steps to be taken to move from conciliation to arbitration. Confidently, Dr. Lyte assured reporters that the Union has the support of its teachers. “Verbal reports suggest 60% of teachers were on strike on Thursday.”

Dr. Mark Lyte, Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), Ministry of Labour, officials, teachers

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