– hopes to include other benefits in pay package negotiations
Renewed salary renegotiations with Government in the New Year, will see the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) advocating
GTU President,
Mark Lyte
for a 20 per cent pay increase across the board for public school teachers.
This is according to GTU President, Mark Lyte, who anticipates that negotiations with Government through the Ministry of Education will commence in the first quarter of 2015.
He said that the Union is hoping for another multi-year agreement with Government; the existing five-year agreement is slated to expire at the end of next year.
The agreement which was inked between Government and the GTU in 2011, was one designed to cater to a five per cent hike in teachers’ salaries at the beginning of each year for a period of five years.
But according to Lyte, the planned negotiations will not only address an increase in salaries, but also other benefits that the Union believes teachers should be entitled to from 2016.
“Our focus is not only on salary issues but also on non-salary issues as well,” said Lyte who noted that the proposed package for teachers will include duty free concessions, allowances for head teachers and principals.
“We are also looking to include incentives for the lecturers at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), and the technical institutes because they are our members as well, and we intend to bring them on board in terms of the benefits we expect them to have,” said the GTU President.
He said, “We are looking to put a complete package together that will help the Ministry focus on the welfare of our teachers.” This move is imperative, Lyte said, since the Union is cognisant of the fact that the teaching profession has become very stressful, and that teachers should be properly compensated for their efforts.
Currently, the GTU is preparing a pay package proposal that will be presented at the time of negotiation with Government. But according to Lyte the GTU has no intention of making the decisions for the teachers without their input.
He noted, “We are allowing for the input from all levels of teachers. We are going on the ground through our various branches to hear what teachers would want us to include in their pay package.”
GTU has 39 branches spread across the country and, according to Lyte, the Union is depending on branch representatives to provide feedback on the teachers’ input.
The status of such discussions was on Tuesday deliberated on when the Union held a General Council meeting at its Woolford Avenue, Georgetown, headquarters. And according to Lyte, at that meeting, a decision was made for the representatives of the various branches to provide the relevant information to the Union by January 31, 2015, to submit all teachers’ suggestions.
At a recent press conference Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, noted that unlike other public servants, teachers will from next month be eligible for a pay increase, an undertaking that is premised on a multiple-year agreement forged with Government.
Manickchand, commenting on measures apace to help improve the livelihood of teachers, said, “I am happy to say that teachers, next year, will not have to wait until the end of the year or until further negotiations between their Union and the Government, to decide on what increases they will get.”
She noted that teachers will be entitled to an increase of five per cent of whatever they are earning as at December 31, 2014. “We know right now that this will happen for teachers in the (public) education system,” asserted Manickchand at her press conference.
Source: https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2014/12/18/gtu-seeks-20-per-cent-increase-for-teachers/