Speaking at his weekly news conference yesterday, Dr. Luncheon reported that parents voiced their concerns to President Bharrat Jagdeo during his travels to various communities.

“….Cabinet voiced its increasing impatience with the protracted outcome of the teachers and the Government of Guyana engagements over the strike.” He said that Cabinet noted with concerns the plight of parents in all parts of Guyana with regards to the absence of delivery of education to children, and more importantly those with specific time-tables relating to one, the previously concluded Secondary School Entrance Examination (SSEE) and now the upcoming CXC examination. Dr. Luncheon told the media that the President himself identified the brief presented to him and other Cabinet ministers as they travelled in Guyanese communities over the negative sentiments about the forced withdrawal of their children from school.

He added that Cabinet also reviewed the more recent development in relation to the strike, whereby there is a deepening division among teachers as regards their continued participation in the strike.

However, having reviewed the recommendations of the Advisory Committee established by the Ministry of Labour to investigate the circumstances surrounding the strike, Cabinet is supportive of the strategy of continued negotiations on all fronts in a bid to end the strike, the HPS said, adding that efforts will be intensified in this respect.

He noted that Cabinet has found the recommendations of the Advisory Committee to be useful in the continued efforts to end the strike.

Responding to the issue of non-deduction of union dues by the Ministry of Education Dr. Luncheon pointed out that for over a decade they were being unauthorisedly being deducted, whereby permission was not received from individual teachers.

“I believe that for more than a decade now, deductions of union dues are unauthorisedly being done, and of course it is the administration that is doing this. The administration without any instructions from individual wage earners has been deducting union dues, while due process in the law with respect to private property has been ignored,” Dr. Luncheon offered.

He added that he is unclear in what way(s) this issue is related to the strike and reiterated the Government’s commitment to resolve the strike.

As regards the demand by the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) for a 15% increase in salaries the HPS contended that it cannot be looked as an isolated matter but has to be viewed in the context of the overall negotiations.

Strike action was taken by the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) to back demands for increases in salaries and improved working conditions following the breakdown of talks between the GTU and the Ministry of Education.

GTU has called on its membership to strike two days per week with effect from March 6 until its demands for salary increases and working conditions are met.

However, in the latter weeks of the last school term the GTU called on its membership to strike on every school day. As a result of the Easter vacation there was an adjournment of the industrial action.