UG staff inch closer to strike

Saying that Vice-Chancellor (VC) Jacob Opadeyi’s response to their demands is “woefully inadequate,” University of Guyana (UG) staff yesterday threatened that if their demands are not met by 4pm today, industrial action will be taken to delay the start of the new semester.

The university is scheduled to open for the new semester on Monday. “The executives of the Unions wish to advise the public and the UG staff and students that the VC’s formal response received on January 20, 2015 to our demands submitted on January 19, 2015 is woefully inadequate, takes matters no closer to a solution and has therefore been rejected,” the University of Guyana Senior Staff Association (UGSSA) and the University of Guyana Workers’ Union (UGWU) said in a joint statement yesterday.

The unions’ main demand is a 60% salary increase.

“Despite the VC’s stated optimism that his response will prevent industrial action, members agreed that failing a positive response to our demands and return immediately to the bargaining table with both the UGSSA and the UGWU, the staff must take some form of industrial action to register our dissatisfaction and frustration,” the statement yesterday said.

Jacob Opadeyi
Jacob Opadeyi

“Staff, students and the general public are therefore advised that barring further communication from the Vice-Chancellor to accede to our demands by 4pm on Thursday January 22nd, 2015, industrial action will be taken to delay the start of the new semester,” it declared.

According to the unions, contrary to statements attributed to the vice-chancellor via online news outlet Demerara Waves, the VC has offered no concrete salary and benefits proposal to any category of worker in response to the demand for a 60% salary increase from March 2015. The VC has also not made any offer of duty-free concessions or increased allowances to UG workers.

“There has been no withdrawal of the UG Administration’s workload policy from Council although a consultation schedule was proposed, which we accept, under the condition that the policy would not be approved by the University Council prior to the conclusion of consultations and the revision of the document,” the unions said. “We intend to ensure that the process is not a perfunctory and meaningless one,” the unions said.

The statement said that in his letter, Dr Opadeyi made “absolutely no offer of any percentage” of salary increase but merely stated that negations must wait “until the University Administration has completed its work on how the increase will be funded.”

As such, the unions said, for the VC to create an impression in his interview with Demerara Waves that an increase was imminent is “a deliberate attempt to deceive. We repeat: the VC has made no offer to pay any increase to UG workers. There is absolutely no mention of these issues in the VC’s written reply.”

The unions said that these and other statements by the VC only widen the gulf of distrust between university staff and the VC.

“The UGSSA and UGWU remain united in our approach to salaries and benefits’ negotiations and reject the efforts by the Administration to divide workers by offering to negotiate separately with the UGWU but not the UGSSA,” the statement said.