Harmon: Teachers’ salary negotiations will take ‘a little longer’
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon

THE multi-year agreement proposed by the Guyana Teachers’ Union(GTU) will cause the process of negotiation to stretch out a little longer, Minister of State Joseph Harmon has said.

The minister was responding to questions posed at his post-Cabinet briefing on Thursday about the state of affairs of salary negotiations for teachers, especially since other public servants will be receiving increases later this year.

According to Harmon, the negotiation is an ongoing process, and will take a little longer than the year-to-year negotiations, stressing that there is no sidelining as suggested by the GTU.
“The last agreement teachers had with government is a multi-year agreement; there are several issues that will have to be streamlined under the agreement,” he said.
“It is a good approach to take on salary and wages so that you do not have to come back every year,” he told members of the media on Thursday.

During the Bharrat Jagdeo administration, then Minister of Education Shaik Baksh in 2011, had negotiated a multi-year salaries and wages agreement. The agreement, apart from the yearly five per cent salary increase for teachers, included a host of other non-salary benefits.
That agreement sought to address an anomaly that has been existing for years: Teachers who have been in the system for years receiving the same salary of a teacher of the same status, who has recently joined the profession.
Hence, the implementation of the “debunching” of payments, whereby teachers would be rewarded according to their qualifications.

At a press conference on Thursday, the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) said it was prepared to call out its members from the classrooms as early as next week for industrial action if the government fails to address the many issues facing teachers.
Among the issues still to be addressed are the debunching payments, which have been outstanding since 2006; the $40M housing project which has been in existence since 2006; and more recently the salary proposal presented to the Ministry of Education late last year.
Union President, Mark Lyte said the body has exhausted every other option. He was resolute that the union will not sit back and “allow this kind of behaviour to prevail, and have our teachers affected by not increasing their salaries”.
He claimed that word going the rounds is that the government will be offering public servants increases in salary, but unfortunately, no one has reached out to the GTU.

“We are saying that this is not good for collective bargaining,” Lyte said, adding:“The GTU has decided that we have had enough. We have given the administration enough time; we have had enough discussions,and we see no progress when it comes to an agreement between the union and the Ministry of Education.”
He said that in the circumstances, the GTU is demanding a swift response, failing which it will call teachers out of the classroom.
“We feel we have no other alternative, and we feel as though we have been taken for granted. We will be calling our teachers out to protest,” he warned.
Lyte said that although the government has been vocal about the importance of collective bargaining, the GTU has not seen anything of the sort being done over the last two years.
And even as the year draws closer to an end, teachers have not yet received an increase in salary.
He claimed that there is a deliberate effort on the part of the government not to address the proposal which was presented to the Ministry of Education since December 2015.

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