-Minister Hamilton says
-Commercial Registry records show union last filed returns for 2004

MINISTER of Labour, Joseph Hamilton, on Friday said that the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) has found itself in a box with its ongoing protests and is now hoping that the Labour Ministry will extricate it.

The minister made these remarks as the union and other political actors moved the protest to the ministry’s head office on Brickdam.

According to the minister, if one is to observe the events that transpired in front of the Labour Ministry on Friday, they would see that politicians were part and parcel of the protest.

“The first set of people that arrived at the ministry were [the] PNC type; some of them in their green APNU t-shirts and a lot of them that are known professional protestors so to speak. So, it was more PNC/APNU+AFC dominated …controlled protest activity,” Minister Hamilton said.

Further to this, he said that this is the point that the government was making.

He pointed out that the GTU has to decide whether they are representing their members or they are doing the political biddings of the opposition.

“So far everything they have displayed suggest that this strike is not about the negotiations and them and the Ministry of Education,” he said.

The minister noted that he suspects that they are now seeking to have the Ministry of Labour brought into the conversation to mediate. However, he emphasised that the ministry’s position remains the same as they cannot facilitate such a process since the two parties are still having discussions.

Additionally, he indicated, “They will start to focus on in my view the Ministry of Labour because I suspect the GTU they have found themselves in this box and they would be pushing to have hopefully the Ministry of Labour and the chief labour officer to extricate them from there.”
The minister further added that that process cannot be rushed even though they believe that if they continue long enough in front of the ministry that such action will be taken.

To this end, he stressed that the ministry will not take action as it is firmly believed that the activity was political in nature.

“It might have started where teachers indeed were prosecuting their grievance but this now is political,” he added.

The minister went on to note that members of the union have again told untruths and indicated to other publications that their financials are up to date.

This, he said is contrary to the reports at the ministry and he noted that the last financial report at the ministry was from 2004.

Hamilton warned that any trade union that fails to submit their financials can be “struck off from the books.”

Meanwhile, the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority on Friday confirmed the ministry’s information, noting that the annual returns required under the Trade Unions Act should be filed annually.

“Amidst queries raised in and posted by the media, this is to clarify that an examination of the relevant records at the Deeds and Commercial Registries Authority discloses that Annual Returns required by Section 35 of the Trade Unions Act, Cap. 98:03 to be filed annually by registered trade unions was last filed by the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) for the year ending 31st of December, 2004, on the 31st of March, 2005,” a brief statement signed by the Registrar of Commerce said.