The teachers’ union has no Collective Labour Agreement with the ministry

Dear Editor,

According to rule 3((a)ii) of the Guyana Trades Union Congress’s constitution a criterion for becoming an affiliate is the submission of a copy of the union’s balance sheet and its annual returns and a copy of its current Collective Labour Agreement.

Were this rule to be applied to the Guyana Teachers’ Union, the GTU would cease to be an affiliate of the GTUC. For years the GTU has been utilizing the loophole in the Trade Union Act (Cap 98:3) and has been submitting financial statements which have not been audited by the Auditor General to both the GTUC to maintain membership and the Registrar of Trade Unions for certification.

Apart from article 207 of the constitution of Guyana, the GTU has no written agreement with the Ministry of Education to represent teachers. The fact that this has never been questioned has caused the union to be both delinquent and derelict in its duty.

It has continued to send Mr Lance Baptiste (an employee) to represent teachers and to visit schools while elected officers of the GTU maintain their presence in their classrooms. In all other teachers’ unions in the Caribbean, union officers are seconded to the union to perform their duty. GTU has opted to contract out the duties of its elected officers to an employee who performs the duties of General Secretary.

As Sonia Durga had posited in her response to me “Is Michael Sinclair a ghost writer? (KN 2007-07-13)” rule 19 of the GTU constitution gives the General Council the power to contract out the duties of elected officers.

I beg to differ and humbly state that this is an abnormality in the practice of industrial relations. Further, the position of Field Secretary is not even mentioned in the GTU’s constitution so how can Mr Baptiste be governed by it? This is indeed puzzling.

But assuming what Ms Durga posited is true, does rule 19 make it possible for Mr Baptiste to enter schools and represent teachers with the absence of a CLA between the GTU and the MOE? I would say no and ask Mr Baptiste what he would say.

Yours faithfully,

Michael Sinclair