80 per cent of teachers, most public servants ignore call to strike

Of the 1,690 teachers that work in this nation’s schools, 1,343 (80 per cent) ignored the call by the St Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers’ Union (SVGTU) to stay off the job last Tuesday.

The situation was worse among the 4,000 or so other public servants, with almost all of them reporting to work, despite the call by the Public Service Union (PSU) for them to do otherwise.{{more}}

The SVGTU and the PSU had called for workers to strike to protest the delay in payment of the one-month tax-free salary they had demanded in lieu of not having received a salary increase since 2011. Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Dr Ralph Gonsalves had said the Government could not afford at this time the payment, which he estimated would cost approximately EC$25 million.

On the day of the strike, SEARCHLIGHT visited 21 schools around mainland St Vincent to see how teachers and students had responded to the call by the unions to stay home.

From our observations and from official statistics obtained by SEARCHLIGHT, students and their parents seemed to have taken the call to strike more seriously than members of the PSU and SVGTU.

Chief education officer Lou-anne Gilchrist on Tuesday evening said in a release that the industrial action was unable to cause disruptions to the normal operations of the school system.

“Our data on teacher attendance indicate that more than eighty per cent of teachers were on duty. The absences can be attributed, naturally, to a variety of reasons including illness and teachers having medical or other appointments,” said Gilchrist.

But while Gilchrist said “more than eighty per cent of teaches were on duty,” The SVGTU reported that 40 per cent of teachers stayed away from classes with some schools being more affected that others. At least one school had classes for only half of the day.

Gilchrist thanked all teachers for their cooperation “as we all forge ahead to build the nation.”