My workers’ union is wrong this time!

21.NOV.08

EDITOR: I have listened to arguments from different sides on the issue of ‘Reclassification’. A very strong view of the government is that the reclassification instrument is not a negotiable one. Recently the Union acknowledged that this view is correct.{{more}} I hope that the Union Executive will now listen to reason and try save teachers further embarrassment.

This revelation by the SVGTU begs these questions. Who advised you to play your trump card first? Did my executive seek the advice of any former executive members? Do you think that their industrial successes were achieved by hasty judgements? Do you think they allowed less than half of the membership to lead them on dead end path? No! They led from in front. They invested in the functioning of the branches, since they knew therein lay the strength of the Union.

Why hold out for three percent on a non-negotiable issue while you have a negotiable one (salary increase) to come about late? Does it take much commonsense to know that what you did not get in one hand, you try to get in the other? You win some, you lose some.

Quite frankly, I wonder if we, teachers, pay attention to what is happening to the economy of developed countries. Is St. Vincent and the Grenadines filled with milk and honey? The words of one of our calypsonians echo daily in my mind. “We Have A Country To Build”. Let it not be known that among us as teachers, that we are putting “self” before “country”, after all, we are the educators of this nation.

A very distraught, longstanding SVGTU member

Mida Mason