The teachers in the Guyana public school system are back in the streets to give teeth to their demands. Their representatives are in the boardroom of the Ministry of Labour participating in a conciliation process that seeks to have a meeting of the minds for a way out of the impasse that has to do with a “livable wage.” The PPP Government is insistent that it has done its part, and that it is good enough to live on. The teachers, through their agents, are just as insistent that what the government has delivered, through a unilateral decision-making process, has nothing that resembles a livable wage, but what is more of a slave wage. My position needs no repeating, but it is, and it hasn’t changed. I am with the teachers, full steam and whole souled.
The wish is that I could say I understand the government relative to where it stands, why it is where it is, and what it is doing. I cannot and I do not. If there is any iota of fairness in me, any element of basic honesty, then I should not be able to understand or reconcile where the PPP Government is with the teachers of this nation’s children. The leading spokespeople of the PPP Government say that there is no money to be found to deliver what teachers are asking, demanding. I say that the money can be found. Since it wasn’t provided for in Dr. Ashni K. Singh’s considerations and presentations(s), then the route favored by the PPP fairly frequently should be traveled again. It is called an approach to the House of the People (it is that of teachers, too) with a supplementary budget. It is guaranteed that there would be no discussion, no objection from the opposition side of the chambers.
Regarding the ongoing conciliation talks at the Labour Ministry, a significant amount of time was squandered by the PPP Government and leadership before agreeing to this necessary first step in the resolution process. The slap downs involving union deductions stoppage, threatened wage cuts, and other intimidatory developments from the government’s side of the fence reminded of the callousness and beastliness of colonials and other exploitative expatriate entities. The PPP still holds on to its working-class roots, for which I shall extend the benefit of the doubt, and not stir any bad feelings about pretense.
Further those put downs identified only succeeded in fostering bad blood (more) and swiftly fading, if not totally gone, good faith. Since there was a clear deadlock between the teachers’ union and the government, the steps had to be to the table of conciliation first and, should that fail to produce the quality and quantity of agreement to end the differences, then binding arbitration had to follow. Despite limited knowledge of movement in any direction with conciliation talks, my intuition is that all is not well, not proceeding to the liking of either of the deadlocked parties.
In addition, there is the sense that the PPP side of the table has no interest in this stalemate ending up in the hands of an arbitration panel. In fact, I think that there is a powerful fear about that, a dogged determination to dodge going anywhere near to that unpredictable animal. If there is one thing that could be predicted about its unpredictability, it is this: whatever it finalizes, the government would end up having to make good on a few pounds and pennies more than it is willing to do. It is why I am hoping that the conciliation process at Labour is a genuine one, and not a charade to stall and stymie, through dragging the time out, and further frustrating the teachers. That is, time to make inroads into the resolve of the striking teachers, and to toy with their morale at the individual level, and esprit de corps as a collective.
Speaking about collective, and bargaining comes to mind. It is the law, and there was a bargaining agreement that expired. In my mind, it may have expired according to the calendar, but it has not been expunged out of existence. To put differently, it is still hovering over this entire shabby saga, and requires some new numbers, new dates, and new terms and provisions. In this the era of Guyana’s coming of age, those should not pose too much of a problem. With billions barreling about like bowling balls, it is difficult for a simple fellow like me to see how some of those big ones [billions] could not be found and directed the teachers’ way.
My recommendation to both sides is that they proceed with the conciliation talks from a fresh and, if I may, realistic perspective. This should be taken to mean one thing and one thing only: flexibility. Maximum pressure, maximum rhetoric, and maximum expectations must give way to wise modification of postures towards what is practical, what is reciprocally acceptable. An adjustment of years would be a start. A refining of numbers (percentages) should be another. Some freelancing in the exchange of positions about conditions of work and such for reaching a sweet spot. Conciliation is a form of negotiation. The good faith kind. It would be to the benefit of this bickering, wrangling, self-strangling nation if all of this could take hold on both sides. Every constituency-children and parents, teachers and union, government and leaders-would all have something to be proud about, even to glue them together. May God bless the conciliation dialogue. The same for Guyana.
