WILL SOME TEACHERS BREACH IRA’S 69: 1 (D)?

Last week’s warning by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Angela Jack, that teachers would open themselves to penalties should they take action in breach of Section 69: 1 of the Industrial Relations Act, should not be ignored either by the teachers or by their union. In addition, the Ministry of Education’s linking of last week Monday’s unusually high absenteeism of teachers to statements reportedly made by a senior official of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA) may have implications for the official as well. For while Section 69, subsection 1(d) expressly prohibits “members of the Teaching Service” from taking “part in any industrial action,” subsection 3 cautions office holders in trade unions against inducing or persuading persons described in 1(d) and other subsections of Section 69 to take such action.

Many persons including officials of TTUTA, have advanced, and understandably so, that teachers should be paid as professionals. TTUTA, however as the organisation representing teachers, should state for the benefit of taxpayers the remuneration levels it thinks that the nation’s teachers should receive. Additionally, it should provide the formula it has employed in arriving at these figures, including, for example, the relation of teachers’ salaries to medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, architects and what have you in the Government Service. It should also quantify teachers benefits, such as vacation, casual and sick leave. In turn, as much as Trinidad and Tobago aims at achieving developed nation status by 2020, TTUTA should state whether it would agree to teachers whose students fall short in their term’s work being required to spend a part of their vacation entitlement in coaching the kids in an effort to upgrade their efficiency.

It is a system, incidentally, in effect in the United States of America. The point I make here is this, that in the same manner that our hospitals (read doctors, nurses etc) provide continuous attention for patients under their care; or that an architect would not be expected to leave incomplete designs on a major project, because of commitment to professionalism, so must a teacher be prepared to make sacrifices for his/her students.

The failure rates in English and Mathematics as revealed recently are cause for concern. While, the children’s parents and their environment may be seen as contributory factors in the students’ non achievement, the relevant teachers must be prepared to accept a certain measure of responsibility. In addition, they must see the rectifying of present and future lapses in other students as a challenge both to be met and overcome. Today’s schoolchildren will be tomorrow’s leaders of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Community of Nations. Every schoolchild who stumbles on the way to adulthood and is not helped to his or her feet, hinders the onward march of this country and by extension CARICOM.

By all means pay the teachers what they deserve, but by the same token the teachers must be seen until the setting of the sun as making an equivalent contribution to their students’ and the country’s progress. The hard truth is that while the majority of the nation’s teachers are hardworking and dedicated, committed to the educational advance of their charges, there are some who do not share this zeal and are, apparently, on a continuous road of withdrawal of enthusiasm. The indifferent few who see nothing wrong in being underperformers, should be regarded by TTUTA as great a challenge for the responsible majority of the teaching profession as their struggle to be treated as professionals. An official of the Trinidad and TobagoUnified Teachers’ Association has said that the teachers were prepared “to fight like hell for their bread and butter,” while the President of TTUTA, Trevor Oliver, is reported as stating that the warning letter from the Permanent Secretary in the Education Ministry meant nothing to the teachers.

“We have to do what we have to do. Our interest is in teachers and education,” Oliver pursued, adding that teachers had to fight for what was theirs. Yet, if as Oliver has declared, the Union’s interest is not merely in teachers, but in education as well, what signals will TTUTA send to the children and their parents should the teachers embark on the action against which Angela Jack has warned? And which, incidentally, will interrupt, however briefly, the children’s education. The penalties referred to by the Permanent Secretary with respect to teachers engaging in action which contravenes Section 69: 1, are not to be dismissed. “A person mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (e), of subsection (1),” subsection (2) states, “who contravenes the provisions thereof is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars or to imprisonment for three months or to both fine and imprisonment.”

Meanwhile, subsection 3 states: “The holder of an office in a trade union or in an organisation of persons mentioned in subsection (1) who calls for or causes industrial action to be taken or any person or organisation who induces or persuades any other person to take such action in any of the services mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of five thousand dollars or to imprisonment for 18 months or both such fine and imprisonment.” Despite the above, will some of the nation’s teachers act in breach of Section 69, subsection 1(d) of the Industrial Relations Act 1972? As a young man I marched with Uriah Butler toward the end of his hunger march from Fyzabad to Port-of-Spain in March of 1952. On Saturday, the 67th anniversary of the June 19, 1937 Social Revolution, many of us who were around then will pause to reflect. In a far different sense I hope that TTUTA, too, will also pause to reflect.