More controversy is afoot as the eligibility of a female legislator to lead a trade union comes under question as the country faces an ongoing teachers’ strike.
Coretta McDonald, the General Secretary of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU), had held that position for over a decade, but became an opposition parliamentarian in the 12th Parliament, right after the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) was declared the victor in a highly contested and contentious March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
However, the trade unionist who transitioned into politics may find herself constrained by her organization’s regulations, which forbid a Member of Parliament (MP) from holding the position of General Secretary.
At least this is according to the country’s Vice-President, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo who has been for two consecutive weeks, labelling the union as an “insincere corrupt cabal” with ties to the parliamentary opposition. Collectively, alleges Jagdeo, the two bodies are hellbent on creating upheaval in the education sector, a year away from the country returning to the polls. But more importantly, the strike is ongoing during the final term before the sitting of the National Grade Six Assessment, commonly referred to as “Common Entrance” – a secondary school placement examination, and the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), better known as CXC. This exam is critical to students existing secondary schools and is a requirement to obtain jobs or admission to tertiary education institution including the University of Guyana (UG).
According to Jagdeo, who cited clauses of the rule book, an MP can only be an associate member, one who only has voting rights, but is prohibited from holding the positions of President and General Secretary.
The revelation comes a week after the VP outed the union for not being up to date with its financial obligations under the Trade Union Act. The GTU, however said that it books were audited by independent firms.
Nevertheless, Jagdeo continues to accuse the GTU of neglecting to submit financial statements for over three decades to the Auditor General – the sole official mandated for this task.
His comments were substantiated by the Auditor General’s Office and the Deeds and Commerical Registries. Notably, both entities have not stated how the union was able to stay under their radar for so long. The Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, recently disclosed that the matter of GTU’s unaudited finances was brought before the then-A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) government back in 2018. However, he noted that no additional action was taken.
Interestingly, despite the AG’s flagging of the non-compliance, successive government, including the PPP/C, continued to act as “agents” by deducting dues from teachers and passing on same to the union. That “courtesy” was only revoked by the government following the initiation of the strike last week. The government is now arguing that the financial opaqueness of the union was taken into consideration in the discontinuation of the deductions but did not say for how long it was aware that the representative body was financially negligent.
GAWU’s compliance
As the government continues to label the strike as political, citing MP McDonald’s involvement, it too, has faced criticism as the head of another trade union sits on the government’s side of the House.
Seepaul Narine is a government MP and is also the head of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), a body that represents workers attached to the sugar belt. The government has been labelled as being overly sympathetic to this body, noting that a vast majority of these workers are from PPP/C strongholds.
But Jagdeo has maintained that this category of workers was blatantly subjected to no wage increases and loss of jobs when the APNU+AFC government shuttered estates in a bid to “right-size” the industry between 2015 and 2020. This government has also been accused of not resorting to the cessation of dues when GAWU goes on strike. However, Jagdeo said that GAWU is in a far better state with regards to financial accountability.
“GAWU has had audited accounts up to 2021, audited by the Auditor General, and they have their 2022 submission in,” Jagdeo said.
