Home Top Stories Why should a Govt aid, abet misuse, abuse of union dues? –...
…as GTU challenges Govt’s move to stop fees deduction in High Court
The Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) has approached the High Court, asking it to quash a decision by the Government to stop deducting fees from unionised teachers and remitting same to the union.
The GTU has organised a countrywide strike by teachers from February 5 to 16, 2024, calling for better pay and working conditions – an action which Government has labelled as illegal and politically driven. Consequently, the Education Ministry has since indicated to the GTU that it would stop deducting dues from the wages and salaries of teachers on behalf of the union. This means the union would now have to collect its fees directly from teachers.
In the application filed on Tuesday by the GTU and its President Mark Lyte against the Attorney General, the union is asking the court to declare, among other things, that it was discriminated against. It also wants the court to declare that Government ceasing to act as an agent for the GTU to deduct union dues is “unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious”.
The GTU asked the court to issue, “An Order of Certiorari quashing the Government of Guyana’s decision to stop acting as an agent to deduct union dues from the unionised teacher and remitting it to the applicant. An order of mandamus ordering Mrs Shannielle Hoosein-Outar, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education to retract her letter dated the 6th February, 2024, and apologise to the Applicant on three consecutive Saturdays in daily newspapers of wide circulation.”
The union is also seeking a declaration that Government’s use of the industrial action taken by the GTU as a reason for relinquishing the agency is a show of “bad faith, improper purposes, and irrelevant considerations” .
Already settled by court
However, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, contends that the severance of this ‘agency service’ that Government offers to unions has already been settled by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal (CoA), and declared as lawful.
The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) had challenged a decision by former Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry, Nanda Gopaul, to withdraw Government’s service of deducting union dues from public servants’ wages and salaries, and remit same to the union.
Former Chief Justice, the late Ian Chang, had ruled against the GPSU in 2010 that Government’s action was not wrong or unlawful and this ruling was upheld in the CoA in 2022.
“Why should the Government continue to offer such a service to a union that wants to hold a government at ransom and has unilaterally decided to call a strike while the Government is negotiating and engaging the union in good faith? Why should a Government aid and abet the misuse and abuse of the union dues on behalf of the teachers of this country? Why should the Government continue to aid and abet a union that is violating all the principles relating to responsible administration and good and transparent management of the finances of the union itself, and by extension, its membership. So, the Government decided to severe that relationship and the Government was guided by a decision of our courts,” the Attorney General argued during his weekly programme – Issues in the News.
On this note, Nandlall vowed that Government would defend its decision against any court action filed to challenge it.
Legitimate expectation
Meanwhile, another declaration that the GTU is seeking from the court is that the Chief Labour Officer, Dhaneshwar Deonarine’s failure to establish conciliation under the Memorandum of Agreement between the Education Ministry and the union for The Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes is a dereliction of duty and a breach of the GTU’s “legitimate expectation of the Government under the said Memorandum”.
But AG Nandlall countered that the Government, through the Ministry, has “reasonably” dealt with the GTU in accordance with good industrial relations, and practices and procedures as well as in compliance with the written terms of engagement that govern the relations between the two entities.
The Attorney General posited that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government did not want an antagonistic relationship with its workers or their representatives.
“We are a working-class government. We don’t want acrimonious relationships with unions. We want to work with the unions, but we’re not going to do so in bad faith, we’re not going to do so under duress, we’re not going to do so under any form of undue influence. We want to bargain fairly, and that is what the law provides for. And we are not, in any way, resiling from that legal obligation to bargain collectively with any group of workers in the country.”
In the same breath, however, Nandlall added, “But there must be protocols and established terms of engagement, and the teachers have unilaterally, unfortunately, decided that they were not going to engage in accordance with those established protocols. So, any actions filed by the union or unions will be defended by the Government.
The Education has already fulfilled 25 of 41 demands proposed by the GTU in a multi-year agreement, and of the 16 remaining requests, two are specifically for the benefit of only GTU and its Executive Members, while two others are contrary to the laws of Guyana. The other 12 proposals are currently under consideration.
In fact, only last month, the Ministry had an engagement with the Union on this matter. Hence, the Labour Ministry has determined that conditions for the strike organised by the GTU have not been met, and as a result, such an industrial action is “wholly illegal and unlawful.”
Government is contending that the countrywide strike action called by the GTU was part of the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Opposition’s tactics to mislead teachers for its own political agenda. At the helm of the union’s leadership is its General Secretary, Coretta McDonald – who is also an Opposition Member of Parliament (MP). (G8)
