The Government of Guyana today postponed its scheduled meeting with the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU). While according to the Union, no rescheduled time or date has been provided, it now believes that the administration “has nothing to offer teachers”.
GTU General Secretary, Coretta McDonald told the Guyana Standard in an interview that the Union was contacted this morning and informed that the “Lead Minister” was unable to attend the meeting.
McDonald explained that the Union is perturbed as to why the expected proposal for teachers’ salary increase and benefits by the administration could not have been presented without the lead individual. She further noted that it is the opinion of the Union that the administration had nothing to present to the Union, even though enough time has been given to the administration for it to review the proposal.
“We gave government this proposal in 2020 when it got into office. It was the same proposal that was given to the previous administration, the only difference was that there were adjustments to the figures, because we recognised that there has been inflation since 2019 and we catered for that in the proposal,” McDonald Donald said.
McDonald told Guyana Standard that the Union back in April had planned to undertake an industrial strike in response to the government’s reluctance to grant their proposal, including the promised salary adjustments for teachers, by President Irfaan Ali.
During a previous engagement, the question of the salary adjustments were raised. In response, the administration told the Union, “The President is a man of his word”.
“The only reason they called that meeting with the Union is because they were aware of the action we had planned. To get ahead of the proposed strike action they called to meet with us. Again I say this administration has no intention to deal with the matters pertaining to teachers,” McDonald said.
The Guyana Teachers’ Union is seeking the current administration’s intervention to grant several benefits within the multi-year agreement that was signed between the previous administration following weeks of protest in 2018.
