Starting Monday, teachers around the country are being asked to ‘work to rule’ as a protest against the failure of the present government through the Ministry of Education (MoE) to pay monies owed to teachers as part of a debunching exercise.
The Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) announced at a press conference yesterday that it will be calling on its members to begin industrial action from May 4. As the second five-year agreement between the MoE and the GTU reaches its expiration date, the GTU is calling foul on one of its agreed conditions.
According to the 2011-2015 agreement between the MoE and GTU “an equivalent of approximately one per cent of the teachers’ wage bill will be used to implement the debunching exercise by the end of May, 2011.” This condition has not been met.
Teachers are currently paid on a scale constituted using academic qualifications. This means that a trained teacher with 5 years of experience is paid the same salary as a teacher who has recently graduated from the Cyril Potter College of Education. A senior mistress with over 10 years’ experience at her post in some cases may be taking home the same money as someone she once taught. A debunching of the salary scale would see teachers being paid different salaries commensurate with their years of experience.
The issue of debunching, according to GTU President Mark Lyte was first brought to the table during the negotiation of the 2006-2010 agreement. That agreement committed to having “the issue of debunching … further discussed between the Ministry of Education and the GTU…”
According to Lyte that agreement came to an end and “not a single teacher received any monies from debunching.” The issue was once again raised in the negotiations of the 2011-2015 agreement where particular provisions were put in place to allow for implementation of a debunching policy.
Lyte further noted that in 2014 “a task force was put together [comprising] MoE officials and representatives from the GTU.” This task force completed its work in terms of categorising teachers and how they will benefit from the debunching. A document was subsequently submitted to MoE so that teachers could begin to receive their payments.
“After months of silence …we were finally told last Wednesday by Dr Roger Luncheon that the government will be unable to pay teachers their debunching monies after ten years.” Lyte informed media.
Noting that teachers have been extremely patient, Lyte lamented that they had been “waiting for ten years for teachers to receive long overdue monies only to realise that all these years [they] have been taken round and round and finally to be told that there is no money, that no money has ever been budgeted for the debunching”
He therefore announced to the nation’s teachers, “The GTU is taking industrial action as of the 4th of May 2015 in the form of work to rule.”
Teachers will work the required hours and complete required tasks but not work beyond or carry extra duties.
Long-time member of the union Lancelot Baptiste explained that this particular form of industrial action will also implement the non-academic norms to ensure that teachers are working under appropriate conditions. These norms dictate certain facilities and provisions which must be in place.
Baptiste emphasised that teachers are being told to fulfil the academic norms but also to demand that the non-academic norms be fulfilled. “We are performing so these non-academic norms should be in place,” he said.
He called for teachers to stop accepting overcrowded classrooms, lack of washroom facilities and absence of potable water. “Since the MoE are demanding their pound of flesh then you must demand your pound of flesh,” he said. He also called on teachers who are offering free extra classes in preparation for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exams and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination or who may be marking late submissions of School Based Assessments (SBA) to stop as these are not within their required duties.
Lyte said the union is prepared to continue this action and even escalate to a strike if the need arises. The union, he said, will assess the response to the action and make appropriate decisions.
When asked if this decision had been communicated to the members of the union the executive members of the GTU present at the conference emphasised that they were fulfilling the wishes of the General Council. “The General Council took a decision [to respond to the MoE failure with industrial action],” Baptiste intoned.
The last General Council meeting was held during the Easter holiday and Stabroek News has learned that several branches including the North Georgetown Branch of the union are yet to meet with their members to communicate the decisions of that council meeting.
Lyte has said that he will be communicating the decision to members with the assistance of media reports owing to the constraints created by the geography of the country. However, teachers at a school within walking distance of the union were not aware of or in agreement with the union’s decision. They expressed the view that the call was unrealistic as it did not acknowledge the real day-to-day requirements of teaching. “It is impossible to complete all your work between 9 and 3.15,” one senior teacher said. “You are in the classroom, then marking of work and completion of records have to be done after.”
Meanwhile the MoE is unaware of the union’s decision. Minister of Education Priya Manickchand told Stabroek News that she had received no information about the action. A call to the union yielded the information that the letter to the ministry was being drafted. (Thandeka Percival)
