OPINION: Takeaways from the teachers’ strike

Last Updated on Tuesday, 5 March 2024, 16:00 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

Back to school in March has a good feeling.  I share a few closing thoughts on this impasse now momentarily cleared.  I hedge bets with momentary, as there is an untrustworthy PPP government involved.  Also closing thoughts could turn out to be second-to-last ones (penultimate is left to wunderkinds and polymaths), given what has gone on, and utter lack of confidence in the PPP leadership honoring anything that is said.

First, a word of praise for Senior Counsel Edward Luckhoo and Robin Stoby for their efforts, their sacrifice of time, money, and maybe even the priority of clients.  These two Guyanese luminaries have achieved what is normally left to foreigners.  To be on the safe side, I don’t know Mr. Luckhoo’s national heritage, and must ask Mr. Stoby about his, when encountered.  Thanks to these two stalwart gentlemen for answering the call of country and circumstances.  They did well, regardless of later developments that may undermine.

Second, I read that GTU’s President, Mr. Mark Lyte, felt some blows for calling off the strike without tangibles in hand.  This is part of the mindset nowadays: only the absolute is sufficient to satisfy.  When everyone holds on to his side of the string, soon there is no string left.  What then?  I stand with Mr. Lyte: give something to get a little something more (probably).  It is a sign of statesmanship.  Of partnership also.  Be mature, flexible, ready to indicate acting in good faith.  Our history has been of tortured conflicts, with few unstained hands.  It is time that something different is tried, a bit of yielding occurs.

Third, I note that Counsel from the Delphic Attorney General’s Chambers, the honorable Darshan Ramdhani, proxy for the even more honorable Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, MP, JP, (and PPP), used the word “conciliatory” in his post mediation speech.  Mr. Ramdhani is lauded for his mini speech.  It was a speech, one taken literally, and with the hope that it is not a canned one, and for the public record only.  To President Ali and VP Jagdeo, Guyanese who object, who protest, who press, are not enemies.  I urge these two remarkable sons and lovers of things honorable, things stirring, and things national, to ponder how much the “conciliatory” (as genuinely so) can do for this country and for its peoples.  Dr. Jagdeo can be cheery and friendly to Venezuelans for something as vulgar as votes.  I respectfully submit to him that it makes for considerably more wisdom and political keenness to be similarly embracing and seriously listening when dealing with true blue Guyanese (better make that red and green) on the matter of money and more to help them live better.  Respect leads to receptivity, the reconciliatory always operates on a higher plane than the retaliatory.  Succeeds frequently.  Counsel Luckhoo and Stoby delivered the first chapter, it is up to Drs. Ali and Jagdeo to fill in the blank pages of the remaining ones.  In my book, I estimate another five chapters involving teachers, and another 25 dealing with the many challenges hanging over Guyanese.  As an aside, though there is a minister for education, some serious education at that elevation should help.  Not everything is politics.  The world is not made up of red and green.

Fourth, reference is made to the energy, ferocity, and versatility that the PPP Government inserted and implemented in the teachers’ strike interval. It had a harder counter, a heavier sledgehammer, and tougher teeth during the runup to the now lost 29 days of instruction.  It will be recalled for the bitterness of its wrenching ambience.  My objective in bringing up the PPP Government’s and leadership’s (Ali and Jagdeo) immovable and irreversible postures with teachers is that there is greater utility in manifesting those in another theater of Guyanese life.  Oil.  Exxon.  Woods.  All that strength and craftsmanship summoned and refined in dealing with teachers would have inestimable returns in confronting Exxon and squeezing it by the marshmallows.  The relentlessness exhibited by Ali and Jagdeo against Guyana’s teachers should be repeated against Exxon and Routledge.  The remorselessness by the PPP Government to bring teachers to their knees should be conspicuous in dealing with the likes of CEO Woods and CFO Mikells.  Alistair Routledge is given third billing.  Like Anil Nandlall, he is bridgehead, spearhead and drumhead, but his head of steam comes from Spring.  It is not some healing bath in Denver, Colorado, but the sulfur of Spring, Texas.  It would be inspiring to behold Drs. Ali and Jagdeo developing some marshmallows of their own, and cease with their fear and trembling behind sanctity of contract.  Why not the same, brothers, with the sanctity of collective bargaining?  Why not the same power and ruthlessness with Exxon re sanctity of Guyanese hopes for a bigger, fairer share of their patrimony, Dr. Ali and Dr. Barry?  The cowardly bully in the PPP throwdown and beatdown Guyanese teachers.  But the emasculated impotence in the same PPP Government drives it to beat a hasty retreat before Exxon.

Fifth and final, there is this observation, which is embedded in mediation clause 3: “The discussions…will continue for a reasonable period of time”.  

I have difficulty with “reasonable period of time.”  Reasonable means different things to different people.  I recall when the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) came out with “promptly” for some of its rules, and how that was twisted and stretched.  There should have been something more specific, as in the next 30 (or 60) working days; or on or before….  Perhaps, I am overreaching.  I step aside and hope that good faith discussions will take place.  Best to teachers, students, the PPP Government, and Guyanese.  The battling and bruising is hopefully over.