- Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer
Participants in attendance at yesterday's Jamaica Teachers' Association Special Delegates Conference held at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston.
Damion Mitchell, Staff Reporter
ONE YEAR and three months after negotiations began between the island's teachers and the Government over the 2002/04 salary package for teachers, the process has finally come to an end with the teachers accepting the Government's offer. However, according to Sadie Comrie, president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), "the struggle continues".
Their acceptance means that they will receive three per cent increase for the six-month period April 2002 to September 2002 with the salaries for October 2002 to March 2004 being calculated to compare with 75 per cent margin of the salaries of those in the private sector. The JTA had proposed a 30 per cent increase for the six-month period.
The new payment will become effective in July, while the retroactive is to be made payable in one tranche in November of this year. Mrs. Comrie said, however, that the JTA would be in dialogue with the Ministry of Finance and Planning for the retroactive payment to be made at an earlier date.
The decision to accept the offer came at a special JTA Delegates Conference at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston yesterday.
BETTER TO ACCEPT IT
Of the 360 delegates eligible to vote, 322 voted to accept the offer with a minority of 40 objecting.
"It's better we just take what we are getting and see how we can manage," one delegate was overheard saying during a five-minute break prior to the casting of the votes.
President-elect of the JTA, Wentworth Gabbidon, said it was his belief that the negotiating process has been long. "We are in the second month of the second year of the two-year contract period and so based on that, people (teachers) could have become frustrated with the drawn-out process," he said, while offering possible reasons for the teachers' decision to accept the offer.
Emanating from concerns regarding the Government's position that the number of days for vacation and sick leave be reduced under the re-alignment exercise, the teachers said this should not be allowed as they would only be paid 75 per cent of market.
Chairman of the Salaries and Conditions Committee, Byron Farquharson, then informed the delegates that the JTA would be continuing dialogue with the Finance Ministry in this regard.
On the matter of performance management, it was disclosed that a committee comprising a member of the JTA and representatives of the Ministry of Education was in dialogue to arrive at the methods to be adopted to "measure" performance.
