– likely to be at it two weeks

TEACHERS across the country are to go on strike from August 27, and the exercise is likely to run for two weeks, President of the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) Mark Lyte said Friday.

Lyte said August 27 is the day all pre-term activities begin, and teachers are expected to be at school then. This is a regular and annual feature, he noted.
“As president and executive, we were given a directive that we need to take strike action, so we are in the process of preparing the letters to the minister and other ministries, especially the Ministry of Labour, that the union will be taking strike action with effect from August 27,” the GTU president stated.

He said all teachers are expected to return to school on August 27 to prepare for the opening of school. “So we are withholding our services for that week, and that will run into the first week of school. So, for now, it will be a two-week strike which can also be extended.
“We have other options; we are, of course, not ruling out protest action: Teachers marching in the streets, but initially we are going to be taking a full-blown strike; withholding our services,” Lyte declared.

He made it clear that teachers are prepared to go on strike, for they believe that the government has disrespected them by offering a $700M payout.

“The minister came out and said increases should be based on performance, and during a tense period like this, it was insensitive to be saying those things to teachers. And I think that further agitated the crowd,” Lyte said.

He believes the move to take strike action is a last-resort one after repeated attempts to come to an amicable and workable solution to the concerns of teachers with respect to the multi-year proposal submitted by the union to the government.

“I am extremely disappointed,” Lyte said, adding: “After threatening before that we are going to take strike action, the President intervened and they set up a taskforce.
“One would have expected good intentions, but looking at the counter-proposal, there was no intention there. I think the whole thing was put on pause and delay the proposal.”
Lyte noted that the counter-proposal by the government has “nothing in it for teachers, so this is a really disrespectful approach”.
The GTU president told reporters that teachers need to be respected. “Teachers have reached a stage where they don’t want to hear of further discussions; they want to hear figures that we can accept,” Lyte stated.

On Thursday, representstives of the Ministry of Education met with representatives of the GTU to discuss government’s counter-proposal.

The union said that instead of offering percentage in salary increase, the government is offering teachers an overall payout of $700M towards salaries.

Lyte had said Thursday that when stretched across the 10,000 teachers in the system, the money would come up to little individually.

“It is chicken feed for the teachers,” he lamented Thursday. He said that of the 27 issues presented, the government either rejected or could not address 22.

Teachers have been calling for duty-free concessions, Whitley council money, performance incentives, clothing allowances, improved qualifications allowances and hard-line station allowance.

One of the most important areas teachers have been looking to have addressed is the debunching and salary increases.