Philipsburg:--- Vice President of the Windward Islands Chamber of Labour Unions (WICLU), Claire Elshot told reporters on Tuesday during WICLU's weekly press conference that the WICLU is in support of the actions taken by the ABVO and other unions in Curacao against the increase of the pension age from 60 to 65. Just recently, a bill was passed in Curacao to increase the old age pension from 60 years old to 65 years old. Several persons and unions attended a meeting on Monday to address the issues that will be affecting pensioners. Elshot said in the case of St. Maarten there is a different situation because St. Maarten has a document that states that the pension age will increase from 60 to 62 and gradually to 65. However, nowhere in the document it is stated how the workers who will be putting in two to five years more of service and paying dues to APS will be compensated. She said the SER already submitted an advice with future plans to increase the pension age to 65. However, in this document some transitional measures were added to it which would guarantee some of the workers' rights. "Even though there is a document, all persons and aspects were not considered. Persons making 58 or 59 will go through a transition period, but persons that went on early retirement prior to reaching 58 or 59 provisions were not made for them and it appears as though they are falling into the forgotten group. Early retirement was granted to a number of persons who had contributed 20 years or more of service and had reached 55 years of age. A number of persons were granted the early retirement in education and a percentage of their salaries would have been paid until they reached the pensionable age. Also in that transitional phase nothing is mentioned about the financial consequences to the workers that have to continue to paying premiums for two or more years."
Elshot further explained that there are a number of senior citizens residing on St. Maarten and are not collecting their full pension because of various loop holes in the system. She said that one of the things the unions and pensioners organization have been championing is equality for all people living within the Kingdom. Elshot said that there are senior citizens on St. Maarten that are collecting a mere Naf. 73 or between Naf 100 to Naf 300+ per month. "Because of this situation there are seniors that are forced to work daily so that they can maintain themselves. Elshot said that pensioners on St. Maarten are suffering severely even though the government announced that there has been an increase for pensioners. When this happens the older persons are taking up places in the job market and therefore the younger generation is not being employed. Right now, too many of these cases are surfacing and something has to be done to rectify the situation because if this continues to escalate then it will create more social problems that no one would be able to control."
She said even though all workers are supposed to be registered at APS since pension has become compulsory, there are several persons who are not yet registered at APS. Elshot is calling on teachers and other civil servants to visit the APS office located at the Yogesh Building to ensure they are fully registered. Elshot further explained that just recently two persons who requested the allowance through pension were denied and the unions will be seeking to get those persons justice because it is more than unfair to them. The unions will be dealing with this matter in a petit committee who will be tabling the issues affecting pensioners and the increase in pension age. Elshot said workers that contributed 30 to 35 years should benefit from the full pension they built up.
No information on COLA.
The WITU President said to date the unions and the GOA have not received any information on the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) payments. Elshot said that the Prime Minister of St. Maarten promised the unions and the GOA that she would have sent a proposal to the GOA since October 2012 and to date the GOA and the unions have not gotten the promised information. The government of St. Maarten now has to pay civil servants the COLA for 2010 to 2013 but on several occasions they said they have to find a new structure to make these payments because the current structure in place is costing government approximately Naf. 20 million per year.
Public Education Teachers Claim that they were over taxed --- Union Investigating.
Teachers working in public education are now crying out because they claim that they were overtaxed on the salary indexation that was due to them since last August. President of the Windward Island Teachers Union (WITU), Claire Elshot told reporters on Tuesday that these teachers were waiting for quite some time for the monthly indexation and now that they have received it in a lump sum in their salaries, the wrong tax structure was used to make deductions from the monies that were owed to them. Elshot said teachers normally get an increment every year starting in August but teachers in public education did not get their increment. She said the problem is that the teachers who received their monies at the end of February had to be paid retroactively however, those monies are part of the teachers' salaries and what they noticed is that those that calculated the salaries did not use the tax scales for normal wage tax. Elshot said the extra-ordinary tax scales were used and the teachers found this to be unfair because what they received was part of their regular salary that was due to them since August 2012. Elshot said if the teachers had gotten what was due to them monthly then they would have been taxed through the regular wage tax system. Elshot said the teachers contacted the union so that they can intervene to have the taxation reversed and hopefully the difference of monies that were taken from the teachers will be reimbursed to them.
More Developments at Prins Willem Alexander School.
The WITU President also told reporters that the union was quite surprised to learn that some foreign psychologists were brought in to access the students attending the Prins Willem Alexander School. Elshot said they found some pertinent issues at that school which were discussed with the Minister of Education when they met and it was quite surprising to learn that foreign psychologists were brought in and the issues such as training teachers at that school to deal with special education for students of that school was not done. Elshot said when they met with the Minister of Education Silveria Jacobs in January 2013, she did not indicate to the union that she had plans to bring in psychologists from outside to analyze the students of the Prins Willem Alexander School. Elshot "a special education teacher" said when she learned of this it raised her eyebrows because those students were screened and tested already. She said there are other issues that are more pressing and urgent for her and her members. Elshot said St. Maarten has a number of psychologists locally that are employed by government and the union cannot understand the need and urgency to bring in foreign psychologists to re-test or screen the students. More troubling for the WITU Elshot said the staff of the school was not informed of the measures that were taken by the Ministry and they felt that the code of ethics was breached. Elshot said the union and the staff of Prins Willem Alexander School will be monitoring the process because they would like to see what back up plan will be put in place to continue monitoring the students.
The WITU president explained that the acute problem facing the school is that there is a lack of certified special education teachers, therefore training has to take place at that school to bring the teachers up to par with the learning disabilities and approaches that have to be used. Elshot said another issue that is plaguing the school is that there are no substitutes teachers. While there are five or more teachers that have different ailments and are on sick leave, they have not been replaced. Elshot said the school has been sharing students with the other teachers which has become an extra burden for their colleagues. Elshot said she is of the opinion that the lack of trained staff at the Prins Willem Alexandre School should have been the number one priority for the Ministry.