The University of Guyana (UG) administration and workers’ unions met yesterday after a prolonged standoff, while students burnt tyres in front of the Turkeyen Campus’s gates as they continued to demand the resumption of classes.
Stabroek News was told that Vice Chancellor Jacob Opadeyi called the meeting with the University Senior Staff Association (UGSSA) and the Univer-sity of Guyana Workers’ Union (UGWU).
Afterward, (UGWU) President Bruce Haynes said “nothing concrete” came out of the meeting.
He said the unions are still holding their ground. Haynes also noted that another meeting was scheduled.
Since the start of the semester, workers have been engaged in industrial action due to collapsed wage negotiations with the UG administration. Today will mark the end of fifth week since then.
Striking academic workers are demanding a 60% increase across the board, along with the rescinding of a workload allocation policy they say is being thrust upon them by Opadeyi.
The administration had offered a 5% increase but this was rejected by the unions, causing the administration to reject further negotiations until the workers return to work. The Labour Ministry has also advised that the workers return to work as a pre-condition for its intervention to mediate the dispute.
In response to the continuing shutdown of the Turkeyen Campus, angry students yesterday again barricaded the gates and stood in the rain with their lecturers and other staffers who are on strike. The protest action began around 7am yesterday and lasted into the evening as they waited on the results of the meeting between the administration and UG workers unions.
Students, however, were not very patient with the state of affairs and began to burn tyres in front of gates, right beside a guard hut. One student stated: “We will raise the barricades after the university raise their standards.”
Belizean student Glenfield Dennison, who was a part of the protest organised by foreign students on Wednesday, stated that the students need to stop accepting “any and everything dished out to them” and challenge the university.
“This is week five. Next week, this wouldn’t be peaceful.
It can’t be peaceful because we have been peaceful for five weeks. The government is not responding.
The government needs to respond … The UG students and the foreign students are fed up. They need to resolve this issue now,” Dennison said.
Other students be-moaned how the shutdown would affect the timetable for examinations, since they are in the fifth week of the semester and classes have not started.
They stated that they were the ones suffering due to the shutdown, since their fees are paid and no lectures are being offered.
