Elshot said in reaction to the Minister's statement on the "no work, no pay policy," the unions invited Attorney at law Shaira Bommel to inform the teachers and civil servants about their rights based on the ILO and the labour laws of St. Maarten during their meetings on Tuesday at the Great Bay Sports Auditorium. Elshot explained that the "no work, no pay policy" was created for ghost civil servants and the Minister cannot implement that on teachers who are fighting for their rights. The WITU president said the ILO is clear and the workers have a right to assemble peacefully during their working hours.
Furthermore, she said implementing such a policy would send the wrong message to the teachers and civil servants during black history month.
Elshot said the unions are the ones who placed the Minister where she is today and they are ready to remove her if it is deemed necessary. Asked if the unions had informed the Minister about their grievances Elshot said Minister Arrindell is not the Minister of Finance and they did inform her about the scaling policy. She said the Minister even invited the head of DERPI Patricia Laurens to explain the unions about the teaching scales. Elshot said the Minister told them that she has intensions of singing a song about the amount of cuts that were made in her Ministry but at no time she indicated to the union that government had taken a decision to put aside the decision taken in July last year on the cost of living allowances and to cut the teachers benefits to balance the budget.
A meeting is scheduled with the various unions and the Council of Ministers at 2pm on Tuesday where they will be discussing a proposal that was prepared by a sub-committee of the unions.
SMN News learnt that the teachers will not be accepting the proposal sent by Finance Minister Hiro Shigemoto where he said goverment will accept the proposal of the unions to pay retroactively to January 2011. The Minister in his proposal said government cannot make the payments until July 1 2011 due to budget constraints.
We urge our readers to listen to the audio interview given by President of the WITU Claire Elshot.
