GTU willing to compromise and negotiate on 2022 to 2025 agreement -Dr. Lyte

With no indication of a date for the resumption of talks between the Ministry of Education and the Guyana Teachers’ Union, the President of the GTU, Dr. Mark Lyte today indicated to News Source that the union is prepared to compromise and begin negotiation on an agreement that would cover the years 2022 to 2025.

The GTU has been pressing for its outstanding 2019 to 2023 proposal to be examined and negotiated first before moving on to this year. The Ministry of Education, however, wants to bypass the outstanding years and focus on negotiations with the union from 2024 onwards.

Speaking to News Source this afternoon from Berbice, the GTU President said the union is willing to give up more than two years from its original proposal, and he believes it is now time for the Ministry of Education to show that it is serious and also offer two years for negotiation that would match the two years that the union would have remaining from its original proposal.

Dr. Lyte said “if the union is ready to compromise on some of those back years, the Government has got to be prepared to compromise on its position. But all we are hearing is that the union must compromise and not the other side, and it is unfair to workers of this country to be asked through their union to compromise five years when there is no compromise on the other side. I would say this now, that if the Government is prepared to take two years – 2022 and 2023 – and we go with 2024, 2025, then we can have a four year agreement ASAP, if the Government is prepared to go with that. We are prepared to give up some of the years under the proposal that we submitted. Is the Government prepared to go back and compromise, rather than hold its position to say 2024 and no more?”

The strike by teachers has been ongoing since February, except for a brief pause when there was a Court hearing on matters raised by the union. Since the resumption of the strike action three weeks ago, more than 50% of teachers have been staying away from their classrooms. As part of its negotiations for terms of resumption, the GTU is requesting that teachers be paid an across the board 20% as a safe net. The Education Ministry has dismissed that request, describing it as an unreasonable demand. But the GTU President said, teachers need some guarantee moving forward with the talks between the two sides.

Ministry of Education negotiation team lead by the Permanent Secretary and Chief Education Officer

“We believe that the union will have to get some sort of guarantee or assurance, other than we will discuss and we will talk. We have heard what the Minister has said, but we would like to see that the Government comes with a position through the Ministry of Education to say look, you guys are asking for an interim payout, x-amount you are asking for, but we are prepared to do Y as a means of showing you that we are serious about these talks”, Lyte said.

The GTU President also dismissed claims of negotiations taking place in duress.

He said “nobody is holding a gun over anybody’s head. It is not negotiations in duress, we were in talking in those meetings about terms of resumption. And if the Ministry of Education is willing to agree to our terms of resumption, our teachers are ready to return to the classrooms as early as Monday morning. We have said this repeatedly and we are serious about what we are saying. We understand that there is learning loss, but the Ministry and the Government have got to take responsibility, and fifty days should not have been achieved through a strike, this strike should have ended a long time ago. And the Government with the capacity to end it, is not making the right moves”.

The Ministry of Education has noted that the strike is having a big impact on learning loss, forcing the Ministry to cancel end-of-year examinations in all public secondary and primary schools. With many parents expressing their frustration all across social media over the situation, the GTU President said parents need to be speaking up much more.

“We have appealed to the parents of the children who are affected to raise their voices. Nobody is prepared to raise their voice, it has always been a call for the teachers to compromise, a call for teachers to give in. Yes, there is massive learning loss in 50 days. The Ministry is prepared to give up the assessment, the end of the academic year assessment which determines the next level a child may go, the next school a child may go, the next stream that a child may go, give up all of that, for holding on their ground. I would say to parents that it is time for parents to let the Government and the Ministry of Education understand what is at stake for their childen”, Lyte explained.

On the issue of the decision in the Court case which was won by the GTU and the belief of the Education Minister that the decision may not be applicable to the current strike action, the GTU President said there is one strike that is continuing and not different strike actions. He reminded that a key position in that ruling made reference to the lack of collective bargaining, adding that collective bargaining has still not taken place.

The Guyana Teachers’ Union maintains that it is prepared to resume talks with the Education Ministry and is even willing to make compromises, but the Ministry must come to the table in good faith.