Coming to the defense of the Ministry of Education, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, believes that the demands being being made by Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) for the resumption of work are “premature.”

The GTU is demanding that teachers must receive an interim 20% across-the-board payment before the ongoing strike is called off to allow for conciliation on the timeframe for the multi-year agreement. 

The Attorney General said instead of addressing the “narrow” issue when it met with the Education Ministry in the presence of the Chief Labour Officer (CLO) earlier this week, the Teachers’ Union set the stage for another impasse by prematurely putting forward a number of demands. 

“Rather than deal with that issue, that narrow issue of what was referred to, to be conciliated upon, which is which timeframe, the union has no superimposed a whole regime of demands, which are not only premature and precipitous, but may not be even considered relevant,” the Attorney General said. 

In an interview with the Department of Public Information, Mr. Nandlall said the two sides must first agree to resolve the impasse regarding the timeframe for the multi-year agreement.

The union is pushing for its 2019-2023 proposal to be addressed first, while the Education Ministry wants to skip that period completely and focus on this year and the years ahead.

AG Nandlall said to resolve these issues by way of conciliation, teachers must return to their classrooms.

“Conciliation by its very nature, and by law, both under the agreement and under the Labour Act can only proceed upon the resumption to work. Conciliation can’t subsist during a strike. That’s an established legal and industrial principle. So, in order for the conciliation to even start, you have to go back to work but the union has now imposed upon the conciliation, a regime of demands, which they are saying, must be addressed before the conciliation even begins. Now, that is in bad faith, that is contrary to the principles of conciliation, and may very well be unlawful,” the Attorney General reasoned. 

The two sides are expected to meet on Monday.

Mwanwhile, the Attorney General has indicated that the Government is moving ahead with its appeal of Justice Kissoon’s recent ruling, which blocked the Government from deducting money from the salaries of striking teachers and also ordered the Government to continue to withdraw union fees from the teachers’ salaries for the union.

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