Once again the Grenada Union of teachers and the Government of Grenada are at loggerheads and at the time of this article being penned an amicable solution to the dispute was not on the immediate horizon.
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell does not agree however that a dispute exists between government and teachers. The Prime Minister thinks that the dispute is being created when there is no reason for one.

In the words of the PM government has all intentions of doing its best to honor is commitment to the teachers but is not in a financial position to do it now.
Dr. Mitchell said everyone including teachers should understand that the blow suffered by Grenada at the hands of hurricanes Ivan and Emily would have made it much more challenging to honor many industrial agreements since lots of government’s financial resourced would have been diverted to the rebuilding and recovery effort.
The prime minister said his government is willing to pay out the money to the teachers but will have to source the money to do so.
He said efforts are underway to raise the money and it may be available soon but the government is unwilling to sign a commitment to specific date because if they fail to raise the money by that time then the teachers will take them to task on it again.
The prime minister said “we will pay” but the payments cannot be made at this point and the teachers will have to wait a bit for their money.
The GUT and its members do not agree. President of the GUT Mr. Marvin Andall said while teachers had returned to the classrooms on Friday 8th after their protest action, this is not necessarily a permanent state of affairs.
He said the fact that government is refusing to sign the agreement means that they are not sure about their commitment to pay teachers the monies that are due to them.
Andall cannot understand how the hardworking teachers can be expected to accept a word of mouth arrangement and be happy with it.
The union has given the government up to December 30 to pay half of the monies owed to teachers and if that deadline is not met then GUT will consider what further steps to take to demonstrate their disgust with how government is handling their matter.
The GUT president insists that despite what the government is trying to make the public believe, the protest action taken by teachers was perfectly legal and is in alignment with the industrial agreement
He certain quarters are accusing teachers of having acted illegally when they stayed out of the classrooms for a few days as an act of protest against government’s failure to honor its side of the collective agreement.
Andall said the action is perfectly within the framework of workers right to protest and take industrial when they think they are wronged.
At a meeting between GUT representatives held on Wednesday December 3, Andall said nothing was achieved since the government side refused to sign a commitment. The union however has decided to ask teachers to return to the classrooms and give government up to December 30 to make some payment and give an assurance of when the balance will be paid.
Industrial conflict between teachers and government is nothing new as it seems that every time a new industrial agreement becomes due or retroactive payments have to be made disagreement breaks out and some kind of protest is staged by the nation’s teachers.
The prime minister has been known to describe teachers as too greedy saying that some of them do not even deserve the salaries they are earning because they do not work hard at educating the nation’s children.
He contends that in many other countries in the region teachers are paid less than in Grenada yet local teachers are always demanding more money.
Teachers on the other hand say that the prime minister and his government do not appreciate how hard they have to work with limited resources and under very challenging conditions.
They say that teachers deserve every cent they get and government has not always been fair in its opinion of and dealing with members of the teaching fraternity.
Teachers say that they care very much about the children under their charge but are not prepared to have their rights trampled upon without doing anything about it.