Dear Editor,
Those who know better are bound to recognise the confusion apparent in the report in SN’s Columns of October 13 on the so-called ‘deal’ reached ‘between Government and Teachers on Wages’.
First of all it should be noted that the ‘deal’ was reached between the Government and the Guyana Teachers’ Union; and secondly, on ‘Salaries’.
But it is just possible that the reporting was in fact reflecting the confusion inherent in this glaringly mis-managed industrial relations exercise, from start to finish.
And the fact that after months of conflicted and contradictory interactions, the parties, under-prepared as they were for conducting the normal recognisable negotiation process, have reached a conclusion; but still leaving room for enquiry about the competence of the government agencies involved.
The SN report mentions the following:
i) Union accepting an ‘across-the-board’ increase of 8% for 2018. (This is in relation to negotiations for ‘salary increases for teachers for the period 2016 to 2018’)
ii) Parties agreeing to a tiered increase of:
12% for junior teachers
8% for senior teachers
What therefore does across-the-board effectively implies?
iii) No increase for 2017
iv) GTU’s President’s emphasis on 80% of the ‘sector’ (Junior Teachers at TS1 – TS4) being adequately compensated
v) Increase in 2016 will have a ripple effect
vi) GTU’s acceptance of ‘$350m’ to cover cost of de-bunching for the period 2011 to 2018.
First reaction to the above must be that an apology is required of the responsible agency for publicly exposing the premeditated arbitrator to a most embarrassing experience of being eventually superfluous.
The second relates to insistence by the Union over the decades in not engaging the Teaching Service Commission in jointly reviewing and reconstructing easily the most archaic job structure of its kind in the Caribbean and beyond – deriving as it is from the colonial era.
It is this job structure which contributes essentially to the most constipated compensation structure anywhere, including as it does:
– Job Grades with fixed salaries; and without relevant salary scales.
– Temporary positions that are of sufficiently indefinite periods, that the incumbents could become eligible for pension.
– The highest jobs in the hierarchical structure being remunerated by a fixed salary; and not evaluated for a salary scale or scales.
– In any case, the chronic narrowness of the scales making a mockery of the principle and action of de-bunching, the widest scale being 9.8%.
– The simplistic grading of some schools based on the maximum number of students.
– The inexplicable differential of at least five salary grades between a ‘qualified Head’ and a ‘non-qualified Head’ discharging the same set of responsibilities at the same size and grade of school.
And more – for one of the outcomes of this glaring compensation imbalance is the exodus to private comparator institutions. Vacancies abound.
In light of the above it is not clear whether there is any remedial programme in place to upgrade the ‘non-qualified’ to the desired level of educational competence.
Indeed the latter prospect needs seriously to be examined so far as the Teaching Service Commission is concerned. But it may well have to engage the Ministry of Education in the construction of a more creative and productive developmental programme.
Yours faithfully,
E.B. John