By Abigail Headley
The Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) continues to maintain that the ongoing strike is lawful as it pursued all avenues for wage talks with the government since 2020 but the Chief Labour Officer is contending that the grievance procedure has not been exhausted.
This newspaper saw correspondence between the Ministry of Labour (MoL) and GTU last year leading up to the strike. According to GTU General Secretary Coretta McDonald, in 2020 a proposal was submitted by the union to the government. This proposal, she explained was supposed to span from 2020 to 2023, but no response has been forthcoming on it, to date.
Due to the GoG’s failure to respond to the union’s proposal, GTU wrote to the MoL’s Chief Labour Officer (CLO) Dhaneshwar Deonarine in a bid to request conciliation. In this letter, dated September 21, 2023, the union referenced the Memorandum of Agreement between the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the GTU on April 10, 1990 on the “Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes”, and expressed the desire to activate Stage Three of the Conciliation process.
This desire and appeal, the correspondence noted, is “based on unsatisfactory settlement on the level of Ministry of Education”.
According to a letter, penned by Deonarine and dated January 25, 2024, a response was made by him to the GTU regarding this request for conciliation.
“I replied to your letter dated September 21, 2023, on September 29, 2023, indicating that based on the letter dated September 26, 2023, from the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, there was no need to activate conciliation/stage 4 of the grievance procedure, by either party, at the time,” Deonarine’s letter stated.
On October 12, 2023, the GTU sent another letter to the CLO, this time with a request for arbitration. Referencing a letter from Deonarine, dated September 29, 2023 on the request for “conciliation”, the GTU correspondence said it wished to bring to his attention that all matters relating to teachers’ welfare discussed between GTU and the MoE were “non-financial” in nature.
“The Minister of Education, Hon. Priya Manickchand on numerous occasions stated clearly ‘that financial matters are dealt with by the Office of the President and not by the Ministry of Education.’ The Guyana Teachers Union wishes to state in no uncertain terms that to date it has not engaged the Office of the President on matters specific to finance (salary increase). Hence, the union demands that Stage 4 on the ‘Avoidance and Settlement of Disputes’ signed on April 10, 1990, be activated since the fourteen days allowed by Stage 3 have expired,” the letter said.
Mutually agreed upon
The union therefore urged that an arbitrator, who is mutually agreed upon by both GTU and the Government, be identified so that the process can commence. Noting that they would be available to participate in the identification and selection process for an arbitrator, GTU said it was looking forward to a prompt response.
A response to this correspondence was, however, not forthcoming from the CLO, and he explained in his January 25, 2024 letter the reason for not responding, contending that the grievance procedure between the two parties in question had not been fully exhausted.
“This was because the grievance procedure agreed upon between the GTU and the MoE had not been fully exhausted and as per the said agreement, activation of arbitration must be (by) mutual consent”.
Deonarine, further explained that “I reasoned that I could not have acted on your request to activate arbitration at the time as there was an attempt by the GTU to breach or not observe the grievance procedure agreed to by the GTU and the Ministry”.
Additionally, he reasoned that there were public pronouncements of President Irfaan Ali intervening and meeting with teachers across the country, “including union representatives” to address their concerns.
Subsequently, having received no response to their letter of request for arbitration from the CLO, the GTU then took things a step further by penning a letter to Minister of Labour Joseph Hamilton. It was in response to this letter that the CLO wrote his January 25th letter.
In their final letter, titled “Urgent Pending Industrial Action” and dated January 23, 2024, the union declared the full-fledged industrial action, due to the government’s failure to address their Multi-Year Agreement, imposed salary increases and non-salary benefits, lack of response from the Chief Labour Officer, and unresolved matters impacting educational stability.
Stating that this was the last resort, GTU therefore requested an urgent meeting with the MoE to discuss these matters and avoid disruption in the educational system. In response to this last correspondence, Deonarine advised the union to refrain from taking any industrial action.
“It is important that the grievance procedure be followed in the interest of good faith industrial relations practice, your union, the Ministry of Education, and the teachers. Additionally, you should refrain from taking any industrial action that would breach or violate the Memorandum of Agreement between the GTU and the Ministry,” he urged.
