Maintaining that the 2024 Budget does not have the fiscal space to facilitate a retroactive payment of salary increases to teachers for the years 2019 to 2023, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo today said other sectors would make similar demands, should the Government heed to the demands of the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU).

The Guyana Teachers’ Union has been pushing for the Government to negotiate salary increases for teachers for the period 2019-2023 as part of a multi-year agreement that it submitted to the Government in 2020.

The Government is maintaining that it could only negotiate increases for 2024 and beyond.

“What the Union wants cannot be accommodated by the fiscal framework. They want us to sign a multi-year agreement retroactively, a multi-year agreement retroactive to 2019, and then also address 2% from 2017, and another 2% from 2018. So, they want us to go back seven years back to address wages and salary issues that were not addressed under APNU,” the Vice President said. 

Mr Jagdeo said during the period of contention, public servants including teachers were given salary hikes, and any decision to offer retroactive salary increases for the years identified by the Teachers’ Union, could result in other categories of public service workers making similar demands. 

There was no salary increase offered in 2020, but in 2021 the Government announced a 7% across the board salary increase for public servants including teachers. In 2022, the Government announced an 8% salary increase for public servants, and last year, a 6.5% salary increase was announced.

Those increases were done without any negotiation or agreement with the Guyana Teachers’ Union or the Guyana Public Service Union.

“If you reopen that for teachers, you have to, out of fairness, you have to ensure that every other category would get the same retroactive increase. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise; we can’t sustain that in the budget,” the Vice President reasoned. 

Talks between GTU and the Ministry of Education collapsed earlier this week after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on the period for negotiation. The Union has since indicated that it will be returning to the High Court to have the issue addressed.

It was a Court-ordered mediation that had resulted in the resumption of talks on financial matters, and the end of a four-week strike by teachers, nationally.

The Vice President said Government awaits GTU’s filings in Court, and will respond appropriately. 

He said the Government has to preserve the finances of the country for the future. 

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