Negotiations on wages between the University of Guyana’s negotiating team and representatives of the University of Guyana Senior Staff Association (UGSSA) and the University of Guyana Workers’ Union (UGWU) will continue on April 13, 2015.
The parties met most recently on March 31st and while no decisions were made Vice-Chancellor Jacob Opadeyi told Stabroek News that the discussions went very well.
In January of this year, negotiations between the administration and the unions on salaries and non-salary benefits collapsed.
Wage negotiations between the academic staff and administration have been going on in some form since 2012. Over the period of these negotiations, there have been interim days of strike by lecturers and students alike before terms for resumption were brokered.
This year, however, the situation came to a head when union demands were not met with positive responses from the administration. Additionally a workload allocation policy was imposed on the academic staff without any attempt to garner the views of the academic community.
In response, the two unions threatened and then implemented industrial action, which lasted for five weeks.
The weeks of industrial action delayed the start of the second semester and saw students led by the University of Guyana Students’ Society protesting the continued deadlock and its effects on their education.
On March 1, 2015, a Terms of Resumption (TOR) Agreement was signed. This agreement saw staff returning to the classroom on March 3, 2015.
Days later the unions claimed that the administration had breached the TOR and threatened further industrial action. However, these actions were canceled when staff were, as was agreed, paid wages including an interim 10% increase on their salary retroactive to January 2015.
April 13 will see the administration negotiation team and staff representatives attempting to devise a permanent solution to this prolonged impasse.
