Civil Society Groups call on the Govt. to adopt a more dignified approach to resolving future industrial disputes

Jun 23, 2024 News

Kaieteur News – Several civil society groups have called on the Government to adopt a more dignified and legally defensible approach to resolving future industrial disputes.

A joint statement signed by the General Workers Union (GWU), Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), Guyana Organization of Indigenous People (GOIP), Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Red Thread, Policy Forum Guyana (PFG) and Transparency International Guyana Inc (TIGI) called on the Government to make the necessary changes.

The statement comes 24 hours after the Guyana Teacher’s Union (GTU) and Ministry of Education have announced on Friday that they agreed to end the ongoing teachers’ strike and teachers are to return to the classroom on Tuesday.

The groups said that although the strike is now called off, they are still concerned with what they described as the “callous and discriminatory manner” in which the negotiating processes was prolonged.

The groups noted that “Prioritizing dealing directly with teachers rather than their trade union does not bode well for the future of constitutional protections for collective bargaining agreements.”

“This year marks 148 years since the signing of the Compulsory Education Bill which set the nation that would become Guyana on a path to almost universal literacy by the time of Independence. Our concern with the experience of the strike reflected an indifference to the long- and short-term costs to teachers, students, families, the education system and the society as a whole,” the groups noted.

Additionally, the civil society organizations said Government’s refusal to accept the High Court verdict on the legitimacy of the strike along with threats to appeal to the case at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) were delaying tactics to drag things out that risked poisoning long-term relations between Ministry and unions.

“Such delays, moreover, benefit from social media’s hollowing out of our capacity to focus on an issue for any length of time.

Further, they noted, the proposal to pay the fees of students who enroll in private sector education insinuated an assault on public education in general, a form of corrupted power versus ‘the people’.

“The fundamental concern compelling our statement is to constrain Government coldness to human suffering when addressing political issues,” the group added.

In addition to the costs to the society, the groups believe that the long strike impacted what are known in the profession as ‘non-academic standards’. These standards include such things as class size, sanitary facilities, laboratories and sports facilities.

Along with dilapidated structures compromises on these standards further eroding morale of teachers. Moreover, the groups believe that the strike graphically highlighted the uneven impact on teachers in rural and urban area.

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Civil Society Groups call on the Govt. to adopt a more dignified approach to resolving future industrial disputes

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