Conciliation talks between the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) and the Ministry of Education began today with the Government maintaining its position that it cannot facilitate retroactive increases dating back to 2019.

The union may now be forced to decide whether it relinquishes its 2019-2023 multi-year proposal.

After today’s meeting, President of the GTU, Mark Lyte said there are decisions that need to be made. 

“That’s a matter for our membership to give us. We have had some talks, and there are mixed views on it. So, we are prepared to have a consensus. Whatever the members want us to do, that’s what the officers will carry through. But we now have a mandate to go back to them and say this is the position,” Lyte told reporters. 

Lyte, along with a number of his Executives, met with the Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussain and other officials from the Education Ministry. The meeting took place at the Ministry of Labour.

He said the Conciliation talks are intended to hammer out the timeframe for a multi-year financial package for teachers, but no agreement was reached at today’s meeting. 

“Today, we had the first day of conciliation where both sides met to officially kick start the conciliation period. As you know, we have approximately 21 days, based on our grievance document, and we would have utilized today to try to flesh out clause number seven which is predominantly based on the timeframe. As you are aware, GTU is consistently saying 2019-2023, Government is saying 2024 and forward. So, both sides would have met today, and there hasn’t been any agreement on the timeframe,” the GTU President explained. 

Ahead of today’s meeting, the Union had signaled its willingness to alter its proposal to include two years from each side. However, its compromise did not find favour with Government, which continues to want to only negotiate on salaries from this year.

Lyte said a number of alternative timeframes were placed on the table today, but Government remained unmoved. He said the union will now have to make some critical decisions going forward. 

“All of that was on the table since the commencement. We spoke about 2021-2023, we spoke about 2022-2025, two years on our side, two years on their side. But what we have been hearing government saying on their side repeatedly is that they can’t go back, they can only go forward. The Union has some decisions to make where that is concern,” Lyte said. 

The two sides have agreed to communicate via email to hammer out a possible timeframe for their negotiations. Lyte said once a timeframe is agreed on, the Union and Education Ministry will then negotiate particulars of the financial proposals, such as salary increases and other financial and non-financial benefits. 

However, if there is no agreement at the end of the 21 days, the process will then move to arbitration.

Related posts:

Salary negotiations for teachers to cover 2019-2023 period GTU writes Chief Labour Officer to begin process of Conciliation over delayed salary negotiations GTU doesn’t want Dept. of Labour mediating Conciliation talks; Ready for Arbitration in salary dispute Teachers to begin nationwide strike today as conciliation talks set for tomorrow