GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC—The Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) has presented several proposals to the government to end the months-old teacher strike. However, the last round of discussions ended in a deadlock on Monday.
“Both parties commit that we will go back to our members; GTU will go back to their members, and the Ministry will go back to their principals…And I think both parties have given some indication that we wanted to have this matter concluded, and therefore, positions were shifted on both sides as to how we can achieve that,” GTU president Dr. Mark Lyte told reporters.
(File Photo)
Among the new proposals put forward by the GTU is for a multi-agreement to be completed within 30 days.
The meeting ended with representatives from the Ministry of Education promising to consider the proposal, which would now span the years 2022 to 2025, a timeframe the union had previously floated as a compromise.
The GTU had previously called for negotiations to cover 2019 to 2024. It has now removed 2019, 2020, and 2021 from the equation. The government has in the past insisted that the negotiations would only be held from 2024.
Lyte said Monday’s meeting focused largely on the terms of resumption, which included the 30-day timeframe for completing negotiations on the proposed multi-year package for teachers and an interim payment to teachers pending the conclusion of that negotiation.
However, he said that the Ministry of Education, led by its permanent secretary and chief education officer, has yet to show a compromise on the interim payment.
“That was one of the things the Ministry objected to again, about the interim payout, so that remains a contentious issue – the payout – and we know it is critical to the resumption process…
“And we are holding out on that, but as I said, some other considerations were put forward with the hope that the Ministry can look at that. If there can be an interim, then they could consider that. One of which is looking at a tighter timeline for the conclusion of the proposal talks,” Lyte said.
Meanwhile, GTU general secretary Coretta McDonald blamed the government for the ongoing teacher strike, saying that the union had made several compromises.
“We initiated this meeting because we thought it was enough time from the last time we met, May 20, to now, that the Ministry would have reconsidered its position. We came with a lot of hopes…, but like everything else, our balloons went down because the government is saying through the Ministry of Education they are not prepared to budge.
“We have offered several options, and all of those options were rejected by the Ministry of Education, which is saying to us that the Ministry of Education and the Government are quite comfortable with this state of affairs,” McDonald said.
The two sides still need to set a date for their next meeting.
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