By Abigail Headley
“They want to show that ‘yes, we are in charge’, but they are not the ones in charge. We the people are the ones who put them in office”.
These were the words of at teacher on the frontline of another sizeable protest turnout of the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) outside the Ministry of Education (MoE)’s Brickdam office yesterday. This teacher, who chose to be referred to only as ‘Mr. Gillis’, was referring to the MoE’s decision to discontinue the deduction of union dues from teachers’ salaries.
“It’s basically what I would refer to as a big stick policy… At the end of the day, yes, I have my union dues. I wrote and I signed a document asking them on my behalf. Not the union asking them to deduct it. I signed a document saying that I want you to deduct my union dues. Just like how I would have said I want you to deduct my payments for my different insurance… So you’re working as an agent for the insurance companies, but you don’t want to work as an agent for the Union. That means you don’t have the respect for nobody,” he told Stabroek News.