– AG says
MINISTER of Legal Affairs and Attorney General (AG), Anil Nandlall has said that the Guyana Teachers’ Union’s recent actions have left it unmasked and show that it is not serious about resolving the impasse.
The minister made those remarks during a recorded interview where he spoke on the ongoing issue between the Education Ministry and the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) where the union sprung even more demands on the ministry insisting that they must be met before teachers return to schools.
“I believe that the position of the GTU has now been unmasked by the current demand… the GTU knows fully well that the government cannot go back and negotiate 2019 to 2023 for many reasons, all of which have been articulated by the government publicly,” he said.
Throughout those years, Nandlall mentioned that the government has implemented salary increases for employees in the public sector, including teachers, who have welcomed this without any objections.
During a substantial portion of that timeframe, he explained that it was the COVID period, characterised by a nearly complete shutdown of the economy and closure of schools. However, teachers at that time not only maintained their salaries but also enjoyed a wide range of benefits.
“They received a whole host of benefits, all of which they accepted. Not once raising an objection to say well what about our multiyear, they accepted,” he added.
Additionally, the minister in charge of legal affairs emphasised the government’s responsibility to guarantee equality of treatment, citing Article 49 of the constitution which safeguards all citizens from any form of discrimination.
As such he said, “To single out teachers as the only class of public sector employees and to confer upon them salary and wage increases to the exclusion of other public servants and other public sector employees would be discrimination against those employees and discrimination in favour of the teachers. That is completely unconstitutional and untenable.”
Furthermore, he pointed out that the matter of affordability comes into consideration. Given that the government is responsible for managing the state’s finances, there are always other competing demands or requests for funding from the treasury.
In relation to this, the attorney general pointed out that the years that the Union has been mentioning have already elapsed, and national budgets have been allocated without any provision for retroactive funds in the approved 2024 budget.
“The government must be entitled to say that we cannot afford this. Or if we do then we have to stop some national project. We have to stop the Demerara Harbour Bridge. We have to stop the east bank highway. We have to stop the gas-to-shore project and I can point to so many other things.
Something must give for there to be financial readjustments or resources to make available the money and employers in any industrial disputes must be entitled to put forward the financial affordability when the question of salary increases arise,” the Attorney General posited.
Nonetheless, he mentioned that the union’s persistent requests to address those previous years and now even proposing a temporary 20 percent raise for all teachers to resume their duties have exposed the union’s lack of commitment to resolving the deadlock.
He said, “Now to me the mask has come off. This union has illustrated even to those who are in support of it that they’re not serious about conciliation; they’re not serious about resolving any impasse. This industrial action is not a bonafide one. It is influenced by other considerations.”
Furthermore, Nandlall emphasised that this demand clearly indicates that the teachers are being manipulated as a means to achieve a different goal.
