Talks be­tween the Guyana Teach­ers Union (GTU), and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE)for a 20-per­cent in­ter­im salary in­crease pend­ing fi­nal ne­go­ti­a­tions and the need for a fixed time­frame for me­di­a­tion, end­ed Mon­day evening in a stale­mate.

A state­ment is­sued by the Min­istry said it “main­tained that there be strict ad­her­ence to the 1990 agree­ment and that the griev­ance pro­ce­dure be fol­lowed as per the said agree­ment.

“In this re­gard, the MoE in­di­cat­ed to GTU that they must end the strike be­fore con­cil­i­a­tion can com­mence on the im­passe,” the state­ment said.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in­sists that the Guyana Teach­ers’ Union acts in good faith and ho­n­ours this agree­ment. Con­cil­i­a­tion can­not com­mence un­til the strike has end­ed and a state of nor­mal­cy re­turns. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­it­er­ates its readi­ness to work to­geth­er to de­ter­mine a mul­ti-year agree­ment from 2024,” the state­ment added.

No date has been fixed for the two sides to meet in the pres­ence of the Chief Labour Of­fi­cer, Dhanesh­war De­onar­ine.

GTU pres­i­dent Dr. Mark Lyte said the union is main­tain­ing its po­si­tion re­gard­ing the de­mand for the pre-ne­go­ti­a­tion’s pay­out, say­ing it is a “safe­ty net for teach­ers who take a stand with the union” be­cause of gov­ern­ment’s his­to­ry of ne­go­ti­at­ing in bad faith.

“Giv­en our ex­pe­ri­ence in the past, we can­not com­pro­mise on that…An in­ter­im pay­ment is nec­es­sary to bring­ing the sit­u­a­tion to nor­mal­cy,” he told re­porters.

Lyte said that the in­ter­im pay­ment would be a guar­an­tee that the Ir­faan Ali gov­ern­ment would be se­ri­ous about the ne­go­ti­a­tions, and any ad­di­tion­al in­creas­es emerg­ing out of ne­go­ti­a­tions when­ev­er they are held would be an ad­di­tion.

The GTU said that the strike by the teach­ers would con­tin­ue.

Three months ago, the GTU be­gan the in­dus­tri­al ac­tion, but halt­ed it af­ter fil­ing a Court case over the gov­ern­ment’s planned de­ci­sion to slash the salaries of strik­ing teach­ers and to al­so dis­con­tin­ue de­duct­ing union dues from the teach­ers from the union.

Teach­ers went back to work as the Court case was be­ing heard. An ear­li­er ef­fort at me­di­a­tion at first ap­peared to be work­ing, but then the gov­ern­ment start­ed to in­sist that it would on­ly be deal­ing with ne­go­ti­a­tions for this year mov­ing for­ward.

With the gov­ern­ment sig­nalling that it would be ap­peal­ing Jus­tice Sandil Kissoon’s judge­ment to the Guyana Court of Ap­peal and with the like­li­hood that the case go­ing to the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), the coun­try’s fi­nal court of ap­peal, the GTU said it was aware of the risk of ul­ti­mate­ly los­ing the case but was pre­pared to re­turn to the streets for a “live­able salary that is com­pat­i­ble with our years of train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence”

The GTU is de­mand­ing salary ne­go­ti­a­tions from 2019 to 2023, while gov­ern­ment is re­fus­ing to budge from of­fer­ing a new mul­ti-year agree­ment from 2024. The GTU’s pro­pos­al pro­vides for 25 per cent in 2019 and 20 per cent for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. —GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, (CMC)