Chanting and bearing placards, teachers protested yesterday outside the Office of the Chief Personnel Officer, St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain, demanding salary increases. Spokesman for the group, second vice-president of the T&T Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) Lynsley Doodhai said teachers were fed up of receiving improper salaries and threatened to take further action when the new school term resumed in January.
“TTUTA will like to settle the negotiations as quickly as possible and if this is not done the protest actions are going to intensify and come January 2015 we cannot guarantee a smooth functioning of schools when the new term begins,” Doodhai said. He said members of TTUTA’s general council were protesting over salary negotiations over the 2011 to 2014 period.
“The latest offer by the CPO has been rejected by the general council and this is a means of expressing our displeasure at what has been offered to TTUTA. “Teachers are currently working on 2011 salaries and we are fast approaching 2015. “The CPO indicated a few months ago she was willing to settle this particular rounds of negotiations as quickly as possible. What we have found is she has been stalling the negotiations,” Doodhai said.
He said while Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh was praising the improvements in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (Cape) he had failed to recognise the call by teachers for salary increases.
“The improvements in these exams are testimony to the fact that teachers are hard workers and they are doing a fantastic job. Teachers need to be rewarded for those improvements in productivity and we are calling on the authorities to come better with an offer,” Doodhai added. Asked to outline the proposal made by the union, Doodhai said it was not a specific percentage.
“We follow a complex procedure where we find the market value of comparable jobs and we try to get figures that are comparable in the external labour market. We look at the comparison based on the job requirements, qualifications and experience,” Doodhai said. Calls to the cellphones of Gopeesingh went unanswered yesterday.