Five months after the expiration of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Ministry of Education and the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) for a remuneration package for teachers, a new one is yet to be inked.The GTU press conference in session Wednesday.The process, according to GTU President, Mr. Mark Lyte, has been stalled since February. Negotiations between the GTU and the Ministry of Education, according to him, were held in January and February.Moreover, he informed members of the media that GTU is likely to take “drastic action” if moves are not swiftly made by the Ministry of Education to continue negotiations for a renewed remuneration package for teachers.Lyte was at the time speaking at a press conference convened at the GTU Woolford Avenue headquarters Wednesday. He was in the company of other GTU executive members.According to him, while the GTU hadn’t identified a timeframe within which negotiations should have been completed it was expected that this process would have been wrapped up, at least, by the end of April.This, Lyte said, was based on the disclosure by Finance Minister, Winston Jordan, when he presented the National budget in January. “We expected that all negotiations, not only for GTU, but for all unions would have been completed before April to enable a change of pay for public servants,” said Lyte.“We are in May (now) and we are still to meet for a third time,” said Lyte of the stalled negotiations.He disclosed that the Union has written to the Ministry indicating its concern regarding the pace of the process. “We are at a point where the Union will have to do something drastic and we know that that would affect the education system tremendously.”Drastic action, Lyte related, could translate to strike action. “Protest didn’t work; work to rule didn’t seem to work…so we will have to look at something more drastic,” asserted Lyte.The Union, last year, engaged in industrial action to retaliate for the non-payment of debunching monies by the previous administration, and in protest action to emphasise its concerns with the operation of the Teaching Service Commission.But according to him, the Union is not usually anxious to take industrial action. “We believe in dialogue. We are educated people and we can talk and bring some resolution to these things but it is not happening in a manner that we would expect,” said Lyte.Given the existing state of affairs, the GTU President said that the possibility exists that strike action could be initiated by month-end. But according to him, such a decision will have to be made at a Special General Council meeting. “If within a few weeks we do not see anything happening, we could very well call a general council meeting to decide what course of action we will take,” said Lyte.On Wednesday, the GTU President expressed disappointment that “the Ministry seems to only see the importance of the GTU when it has something on their agenda to be accomplished and that has to change.”“Maybe it is a case of disrespect; a case of not appreciating our partnership and how important we are as a partner and stakeholders in the education system,” Lyte speculated Wednesday.It was only recently that the GTU President questioned whether the Education Ministry views the welfare of teachers as an important factor.“We are becoming worried as to how this Ministry sees the teachers…Their action doesn’t seem to see teachers as important stakeholders. The welfare of teachers doesn’t seem to be a matter of urgency,” Lyte considered.The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the remuneration of teachers came to an end last year. Moreover, the Union crafted a proposal for the attention of the Ministry with the view of signing a new one to span the period 2016 through 2020.Lyte, moreover, noted that it was rather troubling when he learnt recently that Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine,Authentic NHL Jerseys, had informed members of the media that negotiations regarding the union’s proposal had not started.The Minister’s remark came in response to a question posed by this publication about the progress of the negotiations.The Minister respoded, “I wouldn’t call that negotiations…I have been having some discussions with (GTU President) Mark Lyte and people in the Union and I’m hoping whatever difficulties they have we can resolve them…”The Union has proposed a 40 per cent across the board increase in salary for teachers this year. It is also hoping for a 45 per cent increase for next year (2017) and 50 per cent for the following three years (2018-2020) for all categories of teachers.In its proposal the Union has pointed out, too, that “should there be inflation higher than the percentage agreed upon, then the teachers/teacher-educators must get the benefit of the difference.”However, when asked whether the GTU-proposed 40 per cent increase across the board increase for public school teachers this year would be feasible, Dr. Roopnaraine said, “Frankly, I would like to give the teachers even more but you know we have teachers to deal with, we have nurses to deal with…if you begin to raise the salaries of teachers in the classroom, the nurses are going to say what about us?”
