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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

WIGUT warns of continued protests amid salary stalemate

by

Jesse Ramdeo
34 days ago
20250116
West Indies Group of University Teachers president  Dr Indira Rampersad

West Indies Group of University Teachers president Dr Indira Rampersad

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) St Au­gus­tine cam­pus is fac­ing mount­ing pres­sure, as ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20,000 ex­am­i­na­tion grades re­main un­sub­mit­ted due to an on­go­ing salary dis­pute with lec­tur­ers.

Pres­i­dent of the West In­dies Group of Uni­ver­si­ty Teach­ers (WIGUT), Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, con­firmed the de­layed sub­mis­sions yes­ter­day and warned that protest ac­tions may es­ca­late when the new aca­d­e­m­ic term be­gins next week. This, as she con­firmed that there had been no new de­vel­op­ments since pro­vid­ing a re­vised salary ad­just­ment to the uni­ver­si­ty. 

“This mea­sure is not tar­get­ing stu­dents; this mea­sure is tar­get­ing a quick and rea­son­able re­mit. We nev­er tar­get stu­dents; we are very con­sci­en­tious. We are go­ing to start teach­ing on Mon­day, so the stu­dents will get their teach­ing. What they won’t get is their grades. We’ve asked all var­i­ous de­part­ments, in­clud­ing the li­brary, reg­istry, and ban­ner. We’ve asked all sys­tem op­er­a­tors to shut down op­er­a­tions,” she said.

Since last year, WIGUT has been ag­i­tat­ing for a res­o­lu­tion to the salary ne­go­ti­a­tions at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. The union’s de­mands cen­ter around salary ne­go­ti­a­tions that have been un­re­solved since 2014.

Staff at the St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus have not re­ceived salary ad­just­ments, un­like their coun­ter­parts in Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica, who have se­cured sig­nif­i­cant rais­es.

Ram­per­sad is now call­ing for swift ac­tion and has con­firmed that WIGUT will be meet­ing with the Stu­dent Guild to­mor­row. She main­tained that stu­dents were not be­ing held to ran­som. 

“We know they are not hap­py with it. We are not hap­py ei­ther, but we are left with no op­tion af­ter work­ing for 11 years on the same salary, and it’s un­fair we have gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials get­ting 47 per cent and more and uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers who are very qual­i­fied on this 2014 pit­tance.” 

Last No­vem­ber, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley di­rect­ed Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to take a more di­rect role in re­solv­ing the im­passe over salary in­creas­es at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. Yes­ter­day, a se­nior of­fi­cial at the Min­istry of Fi­nance in­di­cat­ed that there were no new up­dates. 

Guardian Me­dia al­so sent ques­tions to the uni­ver­si­ty re­gard­ing the de­vel­op­ment but there was no re­sponse up to press time.


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