Crick – The teachers can be rehired

Elson Crick, Communications Consultant to Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, is reiterating that the teachers who contested the General Elections on a New Democratic Party (NDP) ticket can be rehireds, as long as there are vacancies in the Public Service.{{more}}

“The Government has never said that the teachers will not be rehired,” said Crick to SEARCHLIGHT in an interview on Wednesday evening.

However, he noted that there is a process which must be carried out, and this involves rehiring the teachers on the basis that there is a vacancy.

Crick said it is not as clear cut as some people are saying that Elvis Daniel, Kenroy Johnson and Addison Thomas must be automatically rehired.

In March this year, the St.Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers’ Union (SVGTU) called on the Government to re-employ the trio, who contested the elections for the NDP and lost.

In an interview on Wednesday, March 9, the Union’s Public Relations Officer Vibert Lampkin said the trade union is making the call based on the Collective Agreement that was signed between the Government and the Teachers’ Union in 2005. He said that was the fourth Collective Agreement.

“In that Collective Agreement, there is a particular clause, Clause 16, which deals with Elections Leave. …In that clause it states that teachers who are members of the Teachers’ Union for three years onwards and are pursuing to be part of a political organization to contest General Elections, that they be allowed to do so and if they are not successful that they be reinstated.

“In fact it went on to say that they should be reinstated at the beginning of the following term of the school year,” said Lampkin.