�Will assemble outside govt building at 3:00pm�
PHILIPSBURG--Teachers and civil servants are requested to assemble at the WIFOL building at 2:00pm today and to gather outside the Government Administration Building around 3:00pm in support of their unions, which will be meeting with Finance Minister Hiro Shigemoto on some of their grievances.
Windward Islands Teachers Union (WITU) and Windward Islands Civil Servants Union/Private Sector Union (WICSU/PSU) met with a large group of their members on Monday night. Based on that meeting they sent a letter to Shigemoto outlining the decisions made and giving him 24 hours to respond.
Government responded and invited the union to a meeting today. WITU President Claire Elshot said last night that the unions wanted to discuss its members' decisions contained in the letter to government.
The unions said government's unilateral move to breach an agreement to pay civil servants and teachers their full 5.3 per cent cost-of-living allowance this year was "totally illegal," an "insult" and "lack of respect" for workers.
In their letter to Shigemoto, the two unions said their members wanted the decision reversed and their members paid their full payment by the end of February "with interest."
Government had decided to split the payment for 2008-2009 over a two-year period to cover a deficit in the 2011 budget, much to the chagrin of the unions, which had not been consulted prior to the decision. Civil servants and teachers rejected government's decision at Monday's meeting. The unions requested that subsidised school boards be informed "in a timely fashion" to be able to make the payment of 5.3 per cent to workers.
"The deferral of this payment in this manner would have serious financial consequence for our membership. It deprives them of income that was already promised to them and therefore budgeted in their family package with the increases caused by the increase of prices per January 1. This is definitely going to create hardship on our members," the two unions said in the letter.
The unions also informed government that the Department of Salary and Wages, within a timeframe of one week, should be supplied with personnel from within the internal government structure to fill the critical vacancies and to enable this department to function optimally in processing the wages and the changes to the wages of the workers in a timely fashion starting February.
The unions requested that Government "respect the laws" on overtime and that those workers from the Salary and Wages Department and all other departments who had worked overtime in December 2010 be duly compensated for their work based on provision in the law.
It also requested that all civil servants receive the "loontrede" as automatic compensation on their salary scale equal to those in the teaching profession, based on the fact that the performance management evaluation was not done with all civil servants in all departments, due to the fact that this responsibility should not transfer in the workers being jeopardised in them receiving their increment to their salary scales as per January 1 (a yearly basis according to the New Salary Scale Structure, teachers are August 1)."
The union also requested that the Vacation Allowance be paid to all workers in the second half of June based on the minister's letter to the unions dated January 23.
"The membership is of the opinion that the establishing of the SER [Social Economic Council] is a step that would enhance the decision-making process on matters relating to the community of the St. Maarten.
"The legal representatives of the civil servants and the teachers are their unions and so far none of them have been consulted on the matter of cost of living before taking a decision to pay this in two parts, the second half 12 months later.
"This decision ... is totally illegal and is also considered an insult and lack of respect to the unions and their membership advocating social dialogue and advising on legal matters pertaining to their status via the advisory body of the GOA [advisory body to government on civil servants matters]."
The letter was copied to Prime Minister Sarah Wescot-Williams and all other ministers in the Council of Ministers.
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