GTU strike: VP Jagdeo “worried” about consequences for teachers if High Court decision overturned

As the resumed strike action across the country continues, Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo said he is worried about the consequences for teachers when the High Court decision that they be paid is eventually overturned in a higher court.
Last month, High Court Judge, Justice Sandil Kissoon, found that the five-week strike action in February by teachers across Guyana was “legal and legitimate.” Consequently, the court ruled, among other things, that the Government could not cut the salaries of those teachers who were on strike and did not show up to work.
The government has since appealed this decision last week, seeking “…an order setting aside the whole of the decision of the Honourable Mr. Justice Sandil Kissoon…”

However, the industrial action led by the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) has resumed and is now in its third week. Confident that the government would be successful in its appeal, the Vice President explained that should the High Court decision be reversed then the teachers would have to face the consequences since their absent days are racking up and this would not bode well for them when their salaries would eventually be deducted.
“Basically, I’m worried about the teachers because if they keep striking then the number of [absent] days are growing, and we’re gonna get that decision reversed… It can’t stand on an appeal. Anytime that stands on an appeal at the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice), you have to shut down the country.”
“Because if it says you cannot work and [still] receive pay; you don’t show up to work and your employers by law and in the constitution would have to pay you, then you wouldn’t show up… What will happen in a country then, you just have to shut down,” Jagdeo contended.
The government, through the Education Ministry, is continuing to engage in negotiations on the way forward with the GTU, which is pushing for a backdated collective bargaining agreement.
However, the government has insisted that it would only consider an agreement covering 2024 onwards – a position Jagdeo reiterated on Thursday.
According to the Vice President, since the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Administration took office in 2020, it has already spent over $90 billion on public sector salary increases. He pointed out that the Government needs to look at the sustainability for any other increases in the public sector.
“For wages and salaries in the public sector, in three areas – central government, the statutory bodies, and public corporations – have grown from about $120 billion in 2020 to $210 billion… That’s a massive growth… All of this growth has to be financed in the future regardless of the price of oil or the revenue flow in the future.”
“So, this means you have about 80 to 90 billion dollars more of disposal income to people… and that’s only from the public sector that has to be financed. We said that the revenue flow in the future years if sustained – maybe through a sovereign fund, would be able to sustain higher levels of renumeration in the future. In the future, our revenue will grow to maybe $10 billion per year, we’re under $2 billion now. So, in the future you will be able to see more increases in wages and salaries,” Jagdeo outlined.
In a marathon ruling on April 19, Justice Kissoon found that the recent five-week GTU-led strike action by teachers across Guyana was “legal and legitimate.”
Initially slated for two weeks but ended up running for over a month, the GTU organised the countrywide strike started on February 5, calling for better pay and working conditions.
The government had labelled the industrial action as illegal and consequently, announced plans to cut the salary of those teachers who did not show up to work for over a month and to also stop deducting union dues from the wages and salaries of teachers.
However, the High Court Judge, in his ruling on the case filed by the GTU to challenge the government’s decisions, had found that the teachers were justified in their strike action since there was no proper collective bargaining between the Education Ministry and the union, which had a multi-year agreement that included salary increases for the period 2019 to 2023.
The High Court judge further ruled 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 the 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, Government argued in its appeal, filed by Attorney General Chamber on May 22, 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 thestrike 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 tu 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.” (G-8)