Today you saw thousands of teachers marching on Belmopan. That means they weren't at their work stations - which is the classroom. So will their pay be docked? It's an issue that comes up whenever teachers strike, but rare is the politician who has the daring to take it out of their pay. Today union President Palacio said it's the rule - but he hopes their right to protest will be observed:..
Jules Vasquez
"Is there any chance that the ministry or thr managements would be so bold as to make a deduction for a day?"
Luke Palacio, President BNTU
"Jules, we've made that known to our teachers, we've said to them that the education rules does say that if the teachers go on any type of industrial action although it specifically speaks to a strike - they may lose salary. We are hoping that that is going to be the operative term "may.""
And doing some housekeeping on Teacher's issues, in fairness we also have to let them respond to the scathing release that the Chamber of Commerce sent out on Friday. As we reported, the Chamber frowned on an across the board wage increase and said it would only favour quote, "properly evaluated increases (for) hardworking public servants." Jules Vasquez unmasked the coded language and asked the unions for their response yesterday:..
Jules Vasquez
"However the Chamber would not condone the idea of a general public sector raise increase - that may serve to simultaneously reward unproductive or counter-productive work. Long story short; read between the lines it seems to be suggesting that a large or a section of the public service ia lazy and unproductive and should not be rewarded. That's what this seems to be saying."
Dylan Reneau, President NTUCB
"Jules, I want to answer it from two angles; the first thing is that their press release was self-serving. If you don't have an increase in business - business growth and in fact there is GDP growth of 3.5% - 7%. Where is that growth coming from, so they are experiencing a growth. As the President of the PSU also mentioned, our presentation was quite clear. We are not only interested in a salary increase, we want to improve on the productivity and the performance of the public service and many of the proposals from the unions are geared towards that but some of those have not been finalize as yet but the president pointed out clearly some of that that have been finalize and they are going to work on them. My direct answer to that is that we are quite concern the way how the Chamber put out that release. They seem to be self-serving and not looking at the greater good of all."
As for self-serving suggestions, the Chamber's statement says that priority should be on Private Sector job creation and real economic growth.
Email
Print