One day after the Guyana Teachers’ Union rejected Government’s 10% salary increase offer, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo declared that the rejection does not reflect the position of teachers.
After weeks of negotiation and getting the union to shelve its 2019 to 2023 proposal, the Government proposed a salary increase by 10% for this year, with a 9% increase for next year and an 8% increase in 2026.
The GTU was split on accepting the offer, and launched consultations with teachers across the country before arriving at a position. The union said based on the feedback of its membership, it had no choice but to reject the Government’s latest offer.
But today Vice President Jagdeo sought to lay blame for the union’s position at the feet of the GTU’s General Secretary, Coretta McDonald, who is an Opposition Member of Parliament.
“The General Council of the Union made a decision and she (the General Secretary) comes along and took instructions from Congress Place. She is a politician and she don’t want the issues resolved with teachers, so she goes and try to sabotage the General Council,” the Vice President said.
The GTU General Council has 52 members.
Mr. Jagdeo said the General Secretary of the Union cannot make a decision on her own about whether to reject the government’s package for teachers.
He said the Government is currently spending nearly $40B annually on wages and salaries for teachers, and its proposed package would have seen an additional 12% accumulatively given to the nation’s teachers along with other benefits.
“The offer for the three-year package is to increase wages and salaries alone for the teachers, it would have been $12B more than is how much teachers would have over the next three years, leaving out the other adjustments we would make where a lot of people would go higher on scale, higher allowances for hinterland teachers and higher wages for qualified teachers,” the Vice President said.
Mr. Jagdeo said the Government is making every effort to work with the union, but it cannot work with a union that is divided in its decision.
The ongoing negotiations between the Government and GTU were triggered by a more than two-month strike by teachers for better wages and salaries.
The GTU was forced to shelve its initial 2019-2023 multi-year proposal on the Government’s insistence, and agree to begin negotiations from this year moving forward.
Teachers have said the union needs to keep pushing for a better salary increase package.
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