GTU’s proposal for teachers’ back pay to 2019 unreasonable- Teixeira

Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister Gail Teixeira has labelled the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) failure to acknowledge the Guyana Government’s proposal to pay teachers’ salary increases from 2024 as “unfair” and “unfortunate”.
This comment comes days after Education Minister Priya Manickchand questioned the sense in paying salary increases to teachers for the 2020 to 2022 period when they were at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Teixeira who was at the time participating in a discussion on the Guyana Dialogue programme explained that during negotiations with the ministry, the GTU proposed a 20 percent salary increase for the period aforementioned.

According to the Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister, the request is “unreasonable” given that the union and country at large is aware that Guyana doesn’t have the fiscal space to accommodate such a huge compensation.
“It’s unfortunate that the union (Guyana Teachers’ Union) is being blind to what is a reasonable agreement and negotiation, but I believe that there are other issues and I believe that it may have a political agenda behind it,” Minister Teixeira said.
In response to GTU’s threats to seek another court mediation, Minister Teixeira explained that stakeholders of the government are awaiting a response on the way forward.
“The union wants us to pay from 2019 to 2024 but we have said that we are paying from 2024, that’s where we will start. As you know there was COVID and people received their salaries but weren’t working. So, what we know is they said the union says there going back to the court so we will see what happens there,” Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister added.

Talks collapsed
Earlier this month, talks between the Education Ministry and the Guyana Teachers’ Union collapsed, after both sides convened to continue the collective bargaining to address salaries and other concerns.
During a press conference, GTU President, Dr Mark Lyte shared that the discussions should have been premised on negotiations for 2019 to 2023, as agreed upon in the first meeting by Government’s chief negotiator, Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussain.
However, Education Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Shannielle Hoosein-Outar joined the negotiations and asked the Union to put together a multi-year proposal for 2024 and beyond.
As a result, the Union staged a walkout of the meeting and has further hinted that there could be a resumption of strike and court actions.
The Education Ministry has since said that GTU abandoned the collective bargaining process.
According to Government, the GTU maintained its determination to only discuss salary matters in relation to the prior years and refused to address the other 25 matters which were identified by both the Education Ministry and the Union for discussion.

Back to court
Court documents seen by this publication on Friday have listed Attorney General Anil Nandlall as the respondent and the Guyana Trades Union Congress as intervener.
Among the requests is one for an order directing the Ministry of Education to disclose all correspondences between the GTU and the MoE in relation to collective bargaining discussions, as claimed by the Ministry of Education; or alternatively, to disclose whether or not there are any such documents in existence.
GTU is also asking for a declaration that it has a right to negotiation within the period 2019-2023; a declaration that the refusal to negotiate for the period 2019-2023 constitutes a breach of its right to collective bargaining under Article 147 of the Constitution of Guyana; a declaration that the minutes dated March 7, 2024 created a binding agreement; and a declaration that the agreement arising from the said minutes created a legitimate expectation.
Moreover, the GTU has requested that Chief Education Officer Saddam Hussain and Education Ministry Permanent Secretary Shannielle Hoosein-Outar be held in contempt of court for “unwillingness and bad faith for refusing to discuss collective bargaining for the period 2019-2023”.

Court mediation
The court ordered mediation between the two parties on February 29, and it resulted in an agreement being arrived at between the Guyana Teachers’ Union and the Attorney General of Guyana on behalf of the Education Ministry. That agreement
outlined that the teachers shall resume work on or before March 6, and discussion shall proceed within 48 hours of resumption of work, and shall be in relation to matters which either party considers relevant for discussion between the Union and the Government, including financial matters.
Following that agreement, teachers resumed work, and the MoE and GTU agreed to table the multi-year proposal 2019-2023 for discussion. (G1)