| Last night, we told you how the Minister of Education, Patrick Faber, made a proposal to BNTU president Luke Palacio suggesting how teachers who were on that eleven-day strike could still get paid.
The BNTU and the Ministry would work together to come up with fund out of the union's strike funds and government would chip in the rest.
Palacio has responded saying that he needs time to get instruction from his union's council of management. And so government has thrown in a sweetener. Faber now proposes that teachers will get their full paycheck come next week Friday. Here's his plan:
Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"Just a while ago we decided to delay the withholding of the salaries from this month of October. We would put it off until next month to give the BNTU ample time to answer the proposal that we have put forward. This is also being done because we have a few of the managing authorities, particularly the largest one, I think the Roman Catholic management. That is saying we have so many schools and teachers that it's hard for us to compile this information. Remember that the strike had gone up until Tuesday I believe, so we still are gathering information. It's hard for us to meet the deadline of 4:30 today, Friday. So we have said 'okay we won't interfere with the salaries for this month of October, but rather we will move with those deductions at the end of the November month."
As you would remember yesterday, the Ministry of Education sent out a memorandum to the managing authorities giving step-by-step instructions on how the deductions should take place.
Today, we asked Faber about the reason for this memo, and here's what he had to say:
Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"Another memorandum from Dr. Carol bob went out giving instructions to the managing authorities, how exactly this calculation from deduction must take place. You're not expected to do any partial deductions, for those who think that that is some move calculated at malice to make sure the teachers feel for their 11 days absence, can you speak to that?"
Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"Well that is the instruction that went out indeed, but again I make the point that I have said to Mr. Palacio in writing that in fact we want to discuss all of these issues and I am saying now that the deductions won't be made for this month, they will be made for next month. If we want to discuss that kind of thing, if the deductions will go through and they are saying we don't have a strike fund and we can't make those contributions and the final decision would be that the deductions will be made, then let's talk about this. I am hoping that Mr. Palacio will come to the table so that this kind of discussion can be had. The fact that we have dressed down, so to speak, the deductions give us ample time to do a lot of things."
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