The Guyana Teachers' Union (GTU) has submitted the names of attorneys-at-law Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan as its choices for chair of the arbitration panel to adjudicate on increases in salaries for teachers for 2003.
The names of Nagamootoo and Ramjattan, both of whom are Central Committee members of the PPP, were submitted when the GTU and the Ministry of Education met at the Ministry of Labour yesterday.
It is expected that the parties will meet again on Friday morning to decide on who will be selected to head the panel.
GTU President Sydney Murdock told Stabroek News yesterday that the union took the decision to put forward the two names as the Ministry of Education had rejected their previous submissions.
The other names the ministry has so far rejected are Justice Winston Moore, Justice Rudolph Harper, Harold Davis Snr., Archie Moore and Phillip Walcott.
To date the GTU has also rejected the names submitted by the ministry.
They are Leila Ramson, Dr Gobind Ganga, Robeson Benn, Hubert Rodney, Vidyanand Persaud and John Seeram.
Those agreed for the panel are the union's representative Professor Harold Lutchman and the ministry's representative finance consultant Winston Jordan.
It is now one year since the GTU and the ministry have been at odds over the issue of teachers' salaries for the year 2002 and 2003.
The ministry has offered teachers a 4.8% increase on salaries this year. Teachers were paid a 5% across-the-board increase in salaries last year.
The lower categories of teachers are at present paid less than cleaner/sweepers attached to schools. (Miranda La Rose)