FI­TUN and the JTUM are de­mand­ing that re­spect be shown to­wards the na­tion’s ed­u­ca­tors, not­ing they ful­ly sup­port TTUTA’s day of ‘rest and re­flect’ to­day.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, be­fore the Gov­ern­ment moved to block the ac­tion, the trade unions con­grat­u­lat­ed TTUTA and the na­tion’s ed­u­ca­tors on their very suc­cess­ful ac­tion tak­en on Sep­tem­ber 22. On that day, teach­ers were urged to sleep late and re­port for class­es half-day. TTUTA re­port­ed 78 per cent of teach­ers heed­ed the call to sleep late.

The state­ment said, “The fed­er­a­tions stand firm be­hind TTUTA and the na­tion’s ed­u­ca­tors, who con­tin­ue to make un­told sac­ri­fices for stu­dents. We main­tain and reaf­firm TTUTA’s po­si­tion that this is re­al­ly about the en­tire ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

“It is clear that the sys­tem is fail­ing many of our na­tion’s chil­dren and teach­ers are left to fill the gaps made by this bro­ken sys­tem.”

The fed­er­a­tions al­so said they “wish to make it clear that the Gov­ern­ment is cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing in bul­ly­ing tac­tics and not in free and fair col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing. Mak­ing it worse is the Gov­ern­ment’s in­sis­tence of not fol­low­ing the mar­ket sur­vey mech­a­nism which is used for col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing in the teach­ing ser­vice.”

FI­TUN and JTUM said they are once again call­ing “for re­spect to be shown to our na­tion’s ed­u­ca­tors who have worked so tire­less­ly with­in a bro­ken ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to en­sure that our na­tion’s chil­dren have the nec­es­sary knowl­edge and skills to cre­ate a fu­ture for our coun­try.”

So far, on­ly the Amal­ga­mat­ed Work­ers’ Union has ac­cept­ed the 4 per cent of­fer made by the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

All oth­er unions and as­so­ci­a­tions rep­re­sent­ing pub­lic sec­tor work­ers have re­ject­ed the of­fer and held sev­er­al protests and march­es to show their dis­gust. Some unions say they are pre­pared to have the In­dus­tri­al Court set­tle the mat­ter.

The Gov­ern­ment mean­while, has gone on record re­peat­ed­ly say­ing it could on­ly af­ford a 4 per cent in­crease. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says it will cost Gov­ern­ment $2.5 bil­lion in back pay alone to cov­er the 4 per cent wage of­fer.

The trade union move­ment has re­ject­ed the first of­fer of the 2 per cent which was made.

Dr Row­ley, speak­ing in June, said, “The of­fer has since been in­creased to four per cent over a six-year pe­ri­od 2014-2019, which will cost Gov­ern­ment $2.5 bil­lion in back pay up to June 2022, and be com­mit­ted to a fur­ther $500 mil­lion, an­nu­al­ly, just for the civ­il ser­vice, teach­ing ser­vice, de­fence force, pro­tec­tive ser­vices and dai­ly rat­ed work­ers.”