Home Letters The GTU must get off its high horse and get back to...
Dear Editor,
It is now public knowledge what the motive of the GTU Executive is, as articulated in their mouthpiece Demerara Waves. It is: continue to stay away from the collective bargaining table, and hope that the Government feels pressured and go to arbitration.
But that is not going to happen, and forcing the teachers in prolonged strike action only makes a bad situation for the union even worse. You see, memories of the 1999 Armstrong Arbitral Award are sweet in their mouths, which Lyte believes can take place in 2024, but again I say that that cannot take place.
In the first place, the conditions that existed then are not the same now. The Janet Jagan Government was then transitioning into a Jagdeo Leadership, and the country was about shakily coming out of two years of violent protests.
The country was in a mess. The situation was then conducive for the Hoyte Opposition to up the pressure on the fledgling government to get them to concede to an arbitration. Led by a deceitful Education Minister Henry Jeffrey, Hoyte chose Armstrong as the arbitrator, knowing fully well what he would do.
Now, what GTU President Dr Mark Lyte is not telling the hapless teachers is that, for an arbitral award to take place, a total breakdown of talks would have had to take place for the Government to come to any stage of an arbitration. Further, the Government would have had to have been under intense pressure from street protests; that is, the violent, chaotic situation that existed in 1999, the present Government of Guyana is not under the climate of either of the two circumstances mentioned above.
If ever the Union is under pressure to lead the teachers into an aimless strike, now that he has backed himself into a corner, he is making inordinate demands on the Government. Asking for a collective bargaining agreement for 2019-2023 is simply unrealistic wishful talk.
Though quite a lopsided agreement, that triennium award was a done deal, collectively bargained and settled between a union and the government of the day. To demand that the present administration renegotiate the award for that period is contrary to reason and commonsense.
Therefore, can we conclude that Lyte is making sort of a belligerent acceptance that his union was duped by the APNU/AFC Government? Must the present Irfaan Ali Government clean up the mess that was made by a government Lyte embraced?
I think Lyte is of that view, but what I can tell him is that approaching the Government of the day in that confrontational manner is not the way to go, and would not solve anything; neither is it in the true spirit of collective bargaining either.
The Government has always maintained that it is open to collective bargaining, as it should be. The GTU has to get off its high horse and sit down as reasonable people and negotiate an agreement. There is no other option.
Respectfully,
Neil Adams
