THE industrial action called by the Guyana Teacher’s Union (GTU) has ended. According to a release from the Ministry of Education, there will be a full resumption of duties from Tuesday next week to allow for discussions to proceed on a multi-year salary agreement.

Why it took nearly two months of strike action by teachers for an agreement to be reached on ending the strike is, at best, puzzling. The Ministry of Education was at no time opposed to discussing a multi-year salary proposal. It was the insistence by the union on the period of the agreement that the Government found to be problematic. The Union had insisted on a commencement period of 2019-2023, which would have had a cascading effect on teachers’ emoluments, which, if implemented, would have resulted in a serious distortion of the remuneration structure between teachers and other public servants.

The increases demanded by the GTU would have seen a significant salary anomaly between teachers and their functional superiors. Teachers at the senior management levels are supervised by Education Officers whose salaries would have been substantially overtaken, relative to that of teachers at the higher end of the Teaching Service Salary Scales, based on the demands of the GTU. In other words, Education Officers are public officers placed on the Public Service Salary Scales. Teachers, on the other hand, are placed on the Teaching Service Salary Scales. Any increase of the magnitude demanded by the Union would result in teachers at the upper echelons, such as headteachers, earning substantially more than their functional superiors.

Such an equation must be factored in on any discussions on salary increases for teachers, failing which it could result in distortions in the remuneration package of those in the Public Service. Of interest to note is that teachers’ salaries already compare favourably with those in the public service, having regard to qualifications and experience.

The other important consideration in determining a fair and reasonable package for teachers is the question of affordability. The economy is indeed doing much better, thanks to revenues from oil, but salary increases beyond the economic capacity to pay and sustain could have inflationary effects, and a consequential erosion of purchasing power.

The above notwithstanding, it is in the best interest of the nation and its children that the strike has ended. The Ministry of Labour must be commended for getting the parties to agree on the terms of resumption, which, hopefully, will be honoured by the parties to the settlement. Critical to any agreement is the element of trust, which the parties have committed to upholding.

Even more important is for the Collective Labour Agreement signed by the parties to be honoured, a fundamental tenet of which is for the grievance procedure to be fully exhausted before industrial action. In the case of this most recent strike action called by the Union, it is clear that the grievance procedure was not followed, resulting in a serious disruption to the teaching/learning process. In the final analysis, it is the nation’s children who are at the receiving end of any industrial action taken by teachers.