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Friday, February 28, 2025

Teachers want salary hike

Boycott likely if CPO fails to settle

by

Shaliza Hassanali
2249 days ago
20190102
President of TTUTA Lynsley Doodhai

President of TTUTA Lynsley Doodhai

Rishi Ragoonath

The 2019 new aca­d­e­m­ic school term may see teach­ers boy­cotting class­es if the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) fails to ar­rive at a rea­son­able salary ne­go­ti­a­tion with the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA).

The warn­ing came yes­ter­day from pres­i­dent of TTUTA Lyns­ley Doo­d­hai, as pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools get set to open its doors next Mon­day.

On Fri­day the CPO will meet with TTUTA to dis­cuss salary ne­go­ti­a­tions for its 15,000 teach­ers.

Of this fig­ure, TTUTA rep­re­sents 11,500 teach­ers.

Doo­d­hai said while TTUTA has been work­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to deal with the chal­lenges in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, its biggest bug­bear was the CPO's fail­ure to ne­go­ti­ate a salary in­crease for the 2014 to 2017 col­lec­tive agree­ment.

"This re­mains a sore point for us as we have teach­ers who are still be­ing paid on 2014 salaries," Doo­d­hai said. With the cost of liv­ing soar­ing, Doo­d­hai said teach­ers de­serve bet­ter pay pack­ages.

In No­vem­ber 2015, Doo­d­hai said, TTUTA sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al on the col­lec­tive agree­ment to the CPO which con­sists of salary and non-salary items.

"Our ne­go­ti­a­tions are not based on per­cent­age in­creas­es. It is based on a mar­ket sur­vey be­ing done to as­cer­tain the val­ue of sim­i­lar jobs on the ex­ter­nal labour mar­ket. And then, those fig­ures are used in ne­go­ti­a­tions," Doo­d­hai said.

"We are hope­ful that some pos­i­tive news can be giv­en to us at that meet­ing."

Since Oc­to­ber, Doo­d­hai said, teach­ers have been wear­ing red cloth­ing, rib­bons, and arm­bands dur­ing class­es as a mark of protest over salary ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Doo­d­hai said if ne­go­ti­a­tions are not set­tled, TTUTA's gen­er­al coun­cil would be en­cour­ag­ing teach­ers to con­tin­ue wear­ing red.

"The wear­ing of the red rib­bon is just the first step. There would be more strin­gent mea­sures that may be adopt­ed by the gen­er­al coun­cil," Doo­d­hai said.

In the past, Doo­d­hai said teach­ers dis­played their dis­ap­proval by hav­ing demon­stra­tions, march­es, and days of rest and re­flec­tion.

"All those are pos­si­ble tools that the gen­er­al coun­cil could still de­ploy. But I don't want to be pre­sump­tu­ous and say that any one of them could be used."

Asked if TTUTA may call on teach­ers to boy­cott class­es should a set­tle­ment not be ar­rived at, Doo­d­hai said "noth­ing can be ruled out".

"But it de­pends on how the ne­go­ti­a­tions and dis­cus­sions go with the CPO. We are hop­ing that both par­ties can sit around the ta­ble and come to some kind of am­i­ca­ble agree­ment and so­lu­tion with re­gards to the pro­pos­al TTUTA would have sent in. We are hop­ing that good sense would pre­vail."

Doo­d­hai said TTUTA was mind­ful of the state of the econ­o­my.

"We are pre­pared to be rea­son­able in terms of our ap­proach to the ne­go­ti­a­tions."

Will TTUTA gar­ner sup­port from oth­er trade unions if ne­go­ti­a­tions break down with the CPO? Doo­d­hai said al­though TTUTA has re­lied on its own strength to send its mes­sage across, they be­lieve in trade union sol­i­dar­i­ty.

"That can­not be ruled out. We are a mem­ber of the Joint Trade Union Move­ment. We al­ways try to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er unions."

Doo­d­hai said Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia has giv­en the as­sur­ance that all schools will be opened on Mon­day.


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