The Guyana Trade Union Congress (GTUC) stands in solidarity with the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) in its struggle for equal treatment for teachers under the Constitution and Laws of Guyana and taking industrial action on Monday, 5th February 2024. GTUC holds the People’s Progressive Party government accountable 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.
Workers’ rights and employer’s duty under the law
Article 147 of the Constitution of the Cooperative Republic Guyana not only protects workers’ right to join a trade union of choice and engage in collective bargaining with the employer but also the right to strike. These rights are enshrined in International Labour Conventions and it is important to note, the right to strike is particularly exercised when workers grievances are ignored by the employer.
The Irfaan Ali administration had more than three years to engage the GTU that submitted a Proposal on Wage/Salaries and Working Conditions in August 2020. Whilst the Ali-regime ignores the GTU as recently as this week officials of the government made public their plan to engage unions in the sugar belt to address issues of wages/salaries and working conditions. This disparity in treatment is part of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime’s contempt for sections of the work force which the GTUC will not countenance.
Repeated efforts by the GTU to have its proposal addressed has not only been rebuffed but teachers have had to face various insults, threats, intimidation and so-called entreaties by the government. These actions violate Section 23 (1) of the Trade Union Recognition Act which expressly states:
“where a trade union obtains a certificate of recognition for workers comprised in a bargaining unit in accordance with this Part, the employer shall recognize the union, and the union and the employer shall bargain in good faith and enter into negotiations with each other for the purpose of collective bargaining.”
GTUC calls on the teachers to support their union’s struggle for in unity there is strength. GTUC also supports the GTU taking all necessary actions to safeguard and defend teachers’ rights which are protected by international conventions and local laws.
Disparity in treatment
The Constitution and Labour Laws are applicable to all unionised workers, not some. These laws never stipulated some are more equal than some, which is what the regime has been communicating to the nation. This issue is not about how much the regime claimed to have paid some teachers or any other excuse but about respecting teachers’ right to collective bargaining.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s efforts to dissuade the nation’s public school teachers by referencing what he considers efforts by the regime to remunerate teachers better is an insult to persons’ intelligence and open contempt for the rights of some Guyanese. If the government does not want the teachers to take industrial action then they must move with alacrity to resolve the three-plus-year-old grievances.
Attempts to sow division and dissuade workers from taking action protected by the constitution by making the GTU General Secretary Coretta McDonald a scapegoat is condemned by the GTUC in the strongest possible terms. Sis Mc Donald like Bro. Seepaul Narine are Members of Parliament. And whereas McDonald is serving this country on the Opposition side, Narine serves on the Government.
The Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU) of which Narine is the president and a union that represents sugar workers is to meet with the government shortly to address the welfare of sugar workers, consistent with the right to collective bargaining. GAWU is not superior to the GTU. To meet with GAWU and refuse to meet with the GTU represents another flagrant violation of the law and transgression of the rights of some workers.
This nation can afford to treat its teachers better and must do so by first respecting the right of our public school teachers to collective bargaining. They demand and deserve no less a treatment and respect as citizens of this land.
Ministers Hamilton and Manickhand abrogated their responsibilities
Rather than Labour Minister Joe Hamilton threatening the workers not to strike he should have activated his responsibility as a conciliator under the Labour Laws and brought the parties to the table the past three plus years.
Education Minister Priya Manickchand rather than asking teachers not to take industrial action should have used her cabinet portfolio to insist the government meet with the GTU or assert her role as the responsible ministry and come to the bargaining table with the teachers.
Article 147 of the Constitution of Guyana and Section 23(1) of the Trade Union Recognition Act must be activated for the teachers, public sector workers and all unionised workers of Guyana equally as these instruments are activated for sugar workers.
This nation has had enough of the PPP’s discriminatory practices towards some sections of the Guyanese community and workforce. Enough is Enough!
