GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC -The Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) urged teachers to return to their jobs by Wednesday next week so that the conciliation talks that ended the 70-day strike on Friday could resume “as soon as possible.”
“Teachers are expected to return by Tuesday…on Wednesday, the union commences conciliation. If you don’t return in those two days, the conciliation cannot start. The earlier the conciliation starts, the better it is for our teachers who have suffered and have gone through a lot of mental health issues. The union is aware of that,” GTU president Dr. Mark Lyte said in a live statement on the GTU’s Facebook page. Watch video
Education Minister Priya Manickchand confirmed in a post on Facebook that the teachers will end the ongoing strike and resume work within two working days.
Lyte said that the situation had been a “tough time for all of us” across Guyana and thanked the membership for standing with the union “when no one else stood,” including the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), the Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) and Education International.
According to the “Agreement on Resumption” document signed by GTU and Ministry of Education Officials, “there shall be no victimization by either party” and “there shall be no loss of service for any teacher/educator.”
In addition, the agreement stipulates that “there shall be an end to the strike and full resumption of work by all teachers/educators within two working days” and that the teachers and educators will return to their respective positions held before the strike.
In addition, there “shall be no transfers upon resumption,” and ‘the status quo shall prevail subject to any ruling which may emanate from extant legal proceedings between the two parties.”
There is also agreement that the resumption of the talks “shall be held by the existing 1990 Memorandum of Agreement”.
The union had been seeking a 20 per cent interim salary increase or a GUY$150,000 (One Guyana dollar = US$0.004 cents) one-off payment to all teachers as a condition for calling off the strike, but Lyte said the teachers had eventually agreed to forgo any financial demands to make way for conciliation.
“During the lapse between June 10th and now, we went back to our membership to state the position that the government has adopted, and the members have indicated to us that they are prepared to allow the process to be followed minus the interim payment or the cash grant,” he said.
Lyte said Friday’s signing of the Terms of Resumption resulted from a new consultation.
The union wants the government to negotiate salary increases on a proposal for 2019 to 2023. Still, the government maintains that pay negotiations must be for a multi-year agreement beginning in 2024.
“Both sides are committed. As you can see, one of the clauses says that we are prepared to negotiate in good faith, so let’s see what that good faith will be,” he said, noting, “key to this would be the clause that allows us to return in the new week to have conciliation on the time-frame and also both parties have agreed to be bound by the 1990 Grievance Procedure Memorandum and that stipulates the timelines for all the processes”.
GTU general secretary Coretta Mc Donald said she hopes the two sides could agree before schools reopen in September.
“While we were going back and forth, the nation’s children were suffering all this time, which was our concern. While we are concerned about our teachers’ welfare, the nation’s children were suffering,” she added.
Teachers began their industrial action on February 5 to support their union’s demands for higher salaries and duty-free concessions, among other benefits.
Following a court-mediated process in March, talks between the Ministry of Education and GTU resumed. However, the discussions stopped when the ministry indicated that there was no fiscal space to cater for increases for 2019 -2023. Increases for 2024 and future years were put for consideration instead.
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, President Irfaan Ali said the industrial action could end soon.
“There has been a lot of ongoing work, discussions about the resumption of work and the issues raised by teachers.
“I don’t want to go in any extended way in response. From the most recent feedback I have received, there seems to be some movement about getting to an initial agreement on terms that will see this situation resumed to some amount of normalcy,” President Ali told a news conference.
Download video – GTU President Dr. Mark Lyte
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