– at conciliation talks

THE Guyana Teachers’ Union, on Friday, failed to show up at a conciliation meeting organised by the Ministry of Social Protection and a new date has been set for the talks.

In a terse statement, the ministry said the GTU did not attend the conciliation meeting which was scheduled for 14:00hrs on Friday at the ministry’s board room; Lot 82, Brickdam Georgetown, Guyana. However, the absence of the union did not prevent the meeting from convening.

According to the ministry, the other concerned party – the Ministry of Education, was present, ready and prepared to participate and did participate in the process, but due to the absence of the union, the meeting was adjourned to 14:00hrs next Wednesday. A letter has since been dispatched by the conciliator to the president of the GTU, informing the union of the new date.

The union has been adamant that it will go on strike from Monday, ever since talks broke down between it and the ministry last week. In fact, the GTU has been travelling the country lobbying teachers to join the strike action.
The GTU has proposed an across-the-board increase in salary of 40 per cent for 2016; 45 per cent in 2017; and 50 per cent in 2018, 2019 and 2020 be granted to all categories of teachers and teacher educators for the years 2016-2020. The Ministry of Education has allocated $700M to facilitate salary increases for teachers, in addition to $200 million to address de-bunching for the year 2018.

Speaking to the media last week, Education Minister, Nicolette Henry maintained that what is being offered is all government can afford. “I want to say to my teachers that the Government of Guyana continues to care for you, and we will ensure that, as far as possible, you get what we could afford, what is best for you, what is best for the country, and what is best for all of us. We promised a good life for all and we will work within what we have and the resources available to do the best that we can,” Henry expressed.
However, the union maintains that the government can afford more.
“We believe that they have the ability to pay more, to honour our teachers, our loving teachers, our hard working teachers; we believe the administration has the capacity to pay teachers, to make a better offer,” Lyte contended.

“What the ministry is focusing on is what extra they have within the 2018 budget to spare, but we are looking at a multi-year agreement that spans five years, so you can’t look at one year’s budget allocation to determine what you can give for five years. It has to be a projection coming from Cabinet, the finance minister being involved, to know what they can pay retroactively. The ministry’s budget would only inform what they can pay this year based on their reserves, and that’s where they are speaking from.”

Henry did explain then that the next step in the collective bargaining process was conciliation, which would take the matter out of her ministry’s hand and in the care of the Department of Labour. “The procedures do not suggest that after negotiations is arbitration. We are all guided by procedure. We are at negotiations, after that we go to conciliation; what conciliation means is that it is no longer under the authority of this ministry,” Henry explained

The union did not commit to moving to the conciliation stage, and according to Mark Lyte, its President, he saw no need for any more meetings between the GTU and the ministry. “I told the minister that we will write her formally to indicate what our next move is; we were not prepared to make a commitment there as to the next step, which might not be in favour of us; the next step has to be something that is favourable to us. We will get some legal advice on the way forward, but we indicated to the minister that we were not prepared to come to another meeting, having the ministry already decided on two occasions that they can’t move what they are offering,” Lyte related.