Govt attempts to retain payments owed to GTU for CoA on August 7

The government’s ‘Stay of Execution’ request in its substantive appeal to reverse the decision of High Court Judge, Justice Sandil Kissoon, who had ruled that striking teachers should be paid and that the Education Ministry must continue to deduct union dues on behalf of the Guyana Teachers Unions (GTU) will come up for hearing on August 7.

This was according to Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall on Tuesday evening during his weekly broadcast, “Issues in the News.”
One day after receiving the written High Court judgement, the Attorney General Chambers filed the challenge in the Appeal Court, seeking “…an order setting aside the whole of the decision of the Honourable Mr. Justice Sandil Kissoon…”
The decision handed down on April 19 had barred the government from deducting salaries from teachers who were on strike for more than five weeks and more so, from stopping the remittance of union dues to the GTU.
The High Court judge found that any move to deduct or withhold the salaries of those teachers on strike would be “arbitrary, unlawful, unreasonable and unconstitutional.” Similarly, he also ruled that government acted “arbitrarily” when it halted the deduction of union dues from teachers’ salaries.

According to Justice Kissoon, “…the right to strike, like the right to engage in collective bargaining, is firmly embedded in the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed to every citizen of Guyana under the Constitution…”
However, the appeal sought a stay of execution of part of the judgment that bars the Education Ministry from discontinuing the remittance of the dues to the Union.
That ‘Stay of Execution’ comes up in court on August 7 while a date is yet to be set for the overall appeal.
“We filed our Notice of Appeal and we are awaiting directions from the Court of Appeal in relation to that notice. However, we have also filed an application seeking a Stay of Execution on the part of the order that restrained the government from ceasing to collect the union dues and transmitting it to the union,” Nandlall explained on Tuesday.
He noted that the AG Chambers submitted all affidavits and documents required for the case to proceed. Submissions will have to be filed by the GTU and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) which had applied to be a party to the case.
The AG argued in his grounds of appeal that the High Court Judge “erred and misdirected himself in law when, he having found that the Applicant’s pleadings could not withstand judicial scrutiny, he failed and/or refused to strike out the pleadings as being frivolous, vexatious, and as disclosing no cause of action… erred in law in considering issues which were not properly and adequately pleaded or pleaded at all, and which did not fall to be determined by the Court.”
It added, that the judge also erred “…when he held that the ‘no work no pay’ principle was raised by the pleadings as an issue to be determined” and “… when he found that there is no difference between a right to strike and the freedom to strike, notwithstanding that the Constitution of Guyana, Chap. 1:01 does not provide for a right to strike, rather, the freedom to strike is expressly guaranteed by Article 147 of the Constitution.”

The appeal document further detailed that “The Learned Trial Judge erred and misdirected himself in law when he held that the strike action called by a trade union was ‘justified’, and that the ‘no work no pay’ principle had no applicability, and that the employer was required to pay wages which had not been earned, contrary to and in contravention of the provisions of the Labour Act, Chap. 98:01.”
Another ground in the appeal was that “The Learned Trial Judge erred in law and fact when he found that the Government’s discontinuation of the gratuitous deduction of union dues and the remittance of the same to the Respondent Guyana Teachers Union constituted a direct interference with the Union’s right to collective bargaining as guaranteed by Article 147 of the Constitution.”
The Education Ministry had disclosed that every month, $700 is deducted from each unionised teacher and remitted to the GTU. This adds up to about $3.1 million monthly, and approximately $37 million annually.
Teachers proceeded on strike action twice this year demanding increases in wages and salaries and a multi-year agreement. Talks have broken down on several occasions but finally, the union conceded to the government’s proposal that salary increases for teachers should be determined under a new agreement from the current year onward.
This is the same proposal the Government had made even before the GTU moved to industrial actions.
The GTU had been pushing for a backdated collective bargaining agreement. However, the Government, through the Education Ministry has maintained that it is fully prepared to work on a multi-year agreement from 2024 and not 2019 as being initially demanded by the union.
The GTU subsequently recanted and agreed to negotiate from 2022 onwards – a proposal that was also rejected by the Government. Earlier this month, the GTU explained that it presented a new proposal covering the period 2024-2026 following consultations with its membership.
As such, bilateral talks between the ministry and the union on the new 2024-2026 multi-year agreement commenced on July 11.