…as negotiations with Govt not close to completion
Teachers are being urged to exercise some level of patience as regards renewed benefits and wage increases, as the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) is still in negotiation with Government over the proposed multi-year agreement which is expected to cover from 2016-2020.
A high-level task force – comprising representatives from the Ministries of Education, Finance, Communities, Public Service and the Presidency and representatives of the GTU – was formed late last year, after the Union had met with President David Granger to discuss the issue.
GTU General Secretary Coretta McDonald
The GTU had previously planned to take strike action against Government, complaining about the slow pace at which the negotiations were taking place. The decision was discussed after a meeting ended on bad terms with Education Minister Nicollet Henry and a team from the Education Ministry.
Almost two months later, both parties are still at the negotiating table and meet every Thursday. But General Secretary of GTU Coretta McDonald said all parties are satisfied with the way the discussions are going so far, admitting that the delay is being caused by the Union which is fine tuning several issues.
As such, the Union official said while she is aware that some teachers are agitated by the long overdue process, it is being delayed so that everything is properly covered. “Just give us some more time and exercise that kind of patience, we are working hard on getting the best deal,” she stated.
McDonald told this newspaper that for teachers who have raised concerns over the process taking a while, she said they have been enlightened about the years some of the other sister unions in the Caribbean region would have waited before their negotiations would have ended.
Asked whether discussions regarding the new multi-year agreement have now moved from non-financial benefits to financial matters, the GTU official did not specify but said the document is being looked at in its entirety and there are various stages that would eventually lead to those matters.
“Negotiations are not an easy process. Our negotiations before in 2006…that one took a long time before we were actually able to sign off on it. What followed after was the process of review the agreement, and still we had lots of hitches there. And you would recall that some of the conditions that we were looking for in those agreements we have not been able to get them up to now,” she added.
Questioned further as to whether she thinks if the GTU had gone ahead with its protest action, that this would have led to the process wrapping up much faster, McDonald said, “I don’t know if we had gone through with the protest action, if things would have been different, because we still have to go through the process and back and forth discussions before we come to a final decision.”
“The Union is quite pleased with what is happening right now in terms of the manner in which our terms and being discussed. We really don’t want to leave anything out so we are going through them bit by bit. Whatever happens now will be retroactive and it will be a precedence that will be set for future negotiations. So quite a lot of things that we did not look at in the previous agreement in terms of tightening the screws, we wouldn’t have escaped route out that is what we are doing right now and that is what is prolonging the process,” she told this publication.
The Union has proposed a series of increases. This, they say, is being projected with the aim of improving the financial stability of its teachers, who are the most significant figures within society.
The 40 per cent salary increase for public school teachers is proposed for the year 2016. Overtime, the percentage will be increased for all categories of its represented teachers.
For the year 2017, the Union is hoping to have bargains for a 45 per cent increase, which will then increase to 50 per cent for the remainder of the years indicated in the agreement (2018-2020).
Among its list of proposals that are still in queue for a response are the duty-free concessions that the Union has been making pleas for over the past few years.
The proposal had been reapproved by Minister of State Joseph Harmon, sometime in 2017 but since then there had been no further discussions on when or if this would be implemented. (Samuel Sukhnandan)
