Support Pours In For Public School Teachers Strike

Guyana’s public school teachers have begun strike action today, seeking to bring the government to the negotiation table to address its multi-year proposal submitted in August 2020. The Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) who is representing the teachers has experienced nothing short of the royal roundabout from the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government. GTU General Secretary, Coretta McDonald, told Village Voice News it is time the government address the ‘Comprehensive Proposal’ submitted “many moons ago.”

Teachers have taken to their social media accounts to encourage their colleagues to participate in the industrial action. One such teacher, Jermaine Figueira, who is also a Member of Parliament, made a post calling on “Teachers of Linden and Region Ten, bright and early ‘all awe OUTSIDE.’ Get up, Stand Up, Forward together in UNITY.”

Former Labour Minister in the PPP Government, Dr. Henry Jeffrey, writing in his Future Notes column yesterday, said the GTU has rightly determined that it must take a stand to protect the interest of its members in a timely manner. “Whatever the outcome, it is time to strike!”

Another columnist of this publication and Kaieteur News, GHK Lall, yesterday also addressed the issue, referring to the situation as “…raw inequity …jagged imbalance….” Turning attention to those who are in disagreement with the strike, he invited contemporaries, including the comrades from the racial and political tribes of Guyana that detest words and positions, to try examining the circumstances of teachers, their pleas not yet heard, and ask if it has not been so (with every no followed by another no to all the other no(s) that became the norm, the standing leadership practice).

General Secretary, Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis, said the strike is justified and laid the blame for the teachers’ industrial action at the feet of the government. Lewis in his Eye on Guyana column yesterday made known:

“The trade union is also not an enemy of the employer. Unions represent workers’ interest and ensure their rights are protected in the workplace. The first tool of the trade union movement is negotiation. When a trade union takes strike action, which is a last resort, is a result of breakdown in negotiation and collective bargaining.”

According to the veteran trade unionist, beyond the Bharrat Jagdeo/Irfaan Ali regime saying government will look at the teachers’ proposal, nothing has been done to commence negotiations. “So here we are in February 2024, with a workforce that is justly dissatisfied, whose rights continue to be trampled on but are still being asked, rather expected, to mould the minds of our nation’s children whilst their welfare is being ignored.”

Recounting the treatment the Union has received from the government McDonald said when the Union enquires about the status of its proposal and when a meeting will be held, the Union was told its Proposal is with the Office of the President. Further the Union was told when the government is ready to engage the teachers they will let them know. “That is all we are getting from them, from August 2020 to now,” she explained in frustration.

Shadow Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Roysdale Forde SC told this publication the government’s treatment of the teachers is a violation of good governance, the rule of law and threatens social cohesion. Forde recounted the right to collective bargaining and said the right is universal for all unionised workers. “That President Irfaan Ali seeks to violate this right for teachers and respect it for others, like the sugar workers’ unions, furthers the government’s ‘one Guyana’ interest. This treatment, he said, runs counter to the national motto of One People One Nation One Destiny that treats all Guyanese as equal under the law.

The umbrella body, GTUC, has expressed solidarity with the Teachers Union, which is part of its federation. In a statement issued Friday, the GTUC said that it “stands in solidarity with the teachers in their struggle for equal treatment under the Constitution and Laws of Guyana.” The federation blames the Government for “creating a bad industrial relations climate by its discriminatory management that sees the continuous violation of laws and transgressing of the rights of some workers.”

The Teachers Union is pushing for the government to retrieve its Proposal, sit with its leadership around the table and “talk like right thinking and law abiding citizens who care about the teachers,” McDonald said.

Meanwhile the government has called on teachers not to strike, even calling the strike “illegal.” Further, last week the government announced its plans to engage trade unions in the sugar industry to discuss wages and working conditions for sugar workers.