Philipsburg:--- The Windward Islands Teachers Union is not at all happy with the explanations given to them regarding the shortchanging of the teachers vacation allowance. President of the WITU Claire Elshot said the union received a response from the executive council outlining the reasons teachers received less monies this year.
According to the letter, which was given to the media it, stated that an indebt investigation was carried out by the finance department and they discovered that there was an error when calculating the vacation allowance.
The error being that the 16..3% Windward Island Allowance was calculated twice during the school year 2007-2008. According to the finance department, they made a mistake since the vacation allowance was integrated in the new salary scales, which went into effect in April last, and the calculation for the vacation allowance was done in the month of May. Elshot said the letter sent by the executive council is not clear because according to the union these calculations are done in the month of June for July. She said and even if the island government made a mistake, they have the right to correct that mistake but not to collect the extra monies that were paid out. She said based on what was taken out from the 2008-2009 vacation allowance it looks as if the finance department corrected the error and also took out the extra monies they claim to have payed the year before. Another explanation given by the finance department is that the pension fund has been increased from Naf. 72,000 to Naf. 77.544, which also caused an increase in the premiums taken out. The executive council also indicated to the union they would be sending each teacher a detail letter explaining them the reason for the drastic decrease in their vacation allowance. However, the union plans to conduct their own investigation into this matter which they intend to follow up Elshot explained.
The unionist said they also held a meeting with the commissioner of education where a number of issues were discussed. She said even the commissioner feels that some of the pending cases regarding teachers should go before a judge so that a ruling could be issued. Elshot explained that even though several of the cases have been filed in the court system the union is of the opinion that a special committee should be installed to deal with these issues which would save both parties monies. She said the persons in charge of the education department cannot be judge and jury in these cases where they themselves did not act fairly.
