Ball in CPO's court – TTUTA waits before deciding next move

TTUTA president Antonia De Freitas says the union is yet to decide on a further course of action after the success of its teachers' day of rest and reflection on Monday.

This is because the union is awaiting further discussions with Chief Personnel Officer Dr Daryl Dindial after the union rejected his latest offer of a four per cent wage increase for the 2014-2019 collective bargaining period, last Friday.

“The CPO provided us with a response from TTUTA on Friday of last week. We have to await correspondence on a willingness to continue discussions even though we rejected the current offer,” De Freitas told Newsday on Tuesday.

“We, therefore, have to wait for the CPO to invite us to a meeting, hear what that response is and then our general council will make a determination on the next course of action.”

She added, “Is not the president calling for something every Monday morning. It does not work like that. The general council because of the membership feedback would make a determination. That is what happened in terms of the action yesterday (on Monday) and that is what will happen when we get feedback from the CPO.”

De Freitas could not say when the union is likely to get a response from the CPO to continue discussions.

“We have not seen of heard of any correspondence as yet.”

On Monday, approximately 70 per cent of the country’s teachers heeded TTUTA’s call to stay away from classes – the first day of the new school term – to protest the CPO’s latest offer.

Of the 30,100 teachers who were expected to return to physical classes, only 3,243 teachers reported for duty at government and denominational schools.

Statistics from the Division of School Supervision said 27 per cent of teachers (1,392) turned out to classes at primary schools while 1,851 teachers reported for duty at secondary schools.

Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly had called on teachers to ignore TTUTA’s call but the union urged its members to stay away from classes to express their dissatisfaction with the CPO’s latest wage offer.

Asked about the turnout of teachers on Tuesday, De Freitas said, “Our members are back out to work today (Tuesday), because our members decided only on action for Monday, September 5. And that was done.”

She said, however, TTUTA will continue with its I Am TTUTA campaign, where members are being asked to wear red or magenta on every working Tuesday.

Data obtained from the Ministry of Education confirmed De Freitas' assertion about Tuesday's turnout.

It said 92.52 per cent of teachers and 81.98 per cent of students came out to primary schools across TT on Tuesday.

Secondary school numbers were slightly lower with an 85.67 per cent turnout among teachers and 78.1 per cent of the student population coming out.

National Parent-Teacher Association (NPTA) president Kevin David also told Newsday the majority of the country’s teachers reported for work.

“From what I understand a lot of the teachers are out and a lot of the students are out. It was less emotional that yesterday,” he said.

David said while he understands the plight of teachers in clamouring for increased salaries, “At the end of the day we have a mandate to ensure that our children are taught and not left unsupervised in not having a teacher in front of them.”

He added, “We have a lot of lost time during the school term itself so to have any intention to disrupt the learning of students, we are not in agreement with that at all.”

David appealed to TTUTA to use other mechanisms to show its dissatisfaction with the salary negotiations.

“Whatever is done should be in the best interest of the children. We should avoid having our children lose more time, especially where we just came back from two years of the pandemic.”

Saying the NPTA will be addressing literacy during the term, David said the association will be launching an awareness campaign from Thursday (International Literacy Day)

“So schools could look forward to the different initiatives that will be propping up during the course of the term itself into next year.”