PHILIPSBURG:--- The Windward Islands Chamber of Labor Unions (WICLU) vice president Claire Elshot told reporters on Tuesday that the unions will be meeting with the GOA on Wednesday to further discuss the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) that are owed to civil servants from 2011 to 2013. Elshot said the WICSU/PSU sent a letter to the government of St. Maarten via a lawyer requesting that a meeting be convened to further discuss the payments of the COLA which she said is long overdue.
The unions are also expected to submit a proposal to government on how they believe the COLA payments should be structured. Elshot said government was supposed to present the GOA with a proposal and to date they have not done so. She said that unions and their memberships are strongly against an outside consultant coming to St. Maarten to conduct a research on how the COLA should be structured, therefore the unions on St. Maarten will send government their proposal in order to start a dialogue on the new structure government wants to create.
Elshot further explained that during their membership meetings the members of the various unions made clear that they want their 2011 and 2012 COLA payments to be indexed to their salaries while they want the 2010 payments to be retroactive to the date when government is able to make the payout. "Our members are telling us that the COLA is a collective right which they have acquired and they want what is due to them. They will not accept the 50% as proposed by the Ministers of Finance both former and current. They know that the payments can only be made when the budget is approved but they want the government of St. Maarten to know that they will not be accepting any half payments."
Elshot said after the meeting with the GOA the unions will meet again to further discuss how they intend to move forward with the COLA. After that meeting they will also call another membership meeting to further update their members on the progress the unions have made since they met last week.
Government Subsidized School refused to pay teachers for certain leave.
Elshot also shared some information that she received from some of her members (teachers) who told her that a particular school board has informed its staff that they will not be paying certain approved leave. Elshot said teachers have rights to paid time off if they are sick, if they are pregnant or if a close relative died. But at least one government subsidized school board told its staff that they will not be honoring some of those approved leave of absence. "The school board made clear that they will not pay their staff if they leave on certain purposes. Already some teachers saw that their salaries were cut when they left their job on approved leave." Elshot said she is currently discussing the matter with the government subsidized school board and will bring the media up to speed depending on the outcome.
WIFOL Meeting with GEBE and its partners in the BES to ensure workers protection.
In the meantime, President of the Workers Institute for Organized Labor (WIFOL) Theophilus Thompson told reporters that he met with the Minister in charge of GEBE where they discussed the MOU that was signed with GEBE and government which deals with the protection of workers rights now that the company is being dismantled. Thompson said he is also working with his union partners ASWE to put together the same package and rights workers of GEBE that work in the BES islands have.
The dismantling (division of assets) of GEBE is set to take place in January 2014 Thompson said.