with the new summons to the Ministry of Education (Mineduc), promoted by the Guatemalan Education Workers Union (Steg), The negotiation of the teachers’ collective agreement “remains on hold”according to Vice Minister Francisco Cabrera.
It was the Court of First Instance for Labor Misdemeanors of the department of Guatemala that processed the legal action presented on April 22 by the union group led by Joviel Acevedo, which alleges a collective conflict of an economic-social nature.
Cabrera indicated that the discussion of the new collective agreement reached close to 80% and that it had become stuck in the articles with economic impact and in the points that violate the stewardship of the portfolio.
“It is not the Ministry of Education that is breaking the negotiation; it is the Steg that chose to judicialize the process,” the official mentions.
Therefore, starting this week, the meetings that were held every Wednesday at the Mineduc headquarters, with representatives of the ministry and the Steg, to discuss the new collective agreement, will no longer take place.
What has been discussed and agreed upon in the meetings so far is reflected in the minutes, but will not take effectunless in a negotiation with judicial intermediation it is agreed to recover what had already been negotiated at the table.
“There will first be a cross-examination of formal arguments from the parties with the court and, if there are no points of agreement, a negotiation will be established with the mediation of another court. It is a kind of arbitration that is carried out with the issue of the pact, and there the articles that had already had some level of agreement can be resumed,” adds the vice minister.
This process can be prolonged; meanwhile, The 2022 collective agreement remains in force.
Last January, the Pluripersonal Labor and Social Welfare Court for the Admission of Claims from the Department of Guatemala summoned the Mineducan action promoted by the ad hoc committee of the Coalition of Workers of the Ministry of Education of Guatemala, a group that, according to the portfolio, was made up of members of the Steg.
Last week, the Third Chamber of the Court of Appeals for Labor and Social Welfare annulled the preventions and said summons.
Therefore, Cabrera is not surprised by the new legal action against the ministry, now promoted directly by Acevedo’s union.
“It was very clear that it was a maneuver with which they intended to disguise the true origin. So, when the site was lifted, I think they had no other alternative. (The new action) was on the stage, but frankly we did not expect it to happen now,” adds the official.
The scope of the summons, according to the official, is that disciplinary and dismissal processes require court approval. “It only adds one step to what the ministry would normally have done, it is not that it cannot be dismissed; it can, it just adds judicial control,” Cabrera concludes.