‘BSTU knows the law’

The Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) is fully aware of the law.

Re-elected President, Mary-Anne Redman made this clear, noting that members do know that their salaries could be docked for strike action. However, she contends that the recent ‘March of Disrespect’ was not a strike.

“If we intended to strike, we could have done it at a time that would have had greater effect,” Redman indicated as she addressed BSTU’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at Harrison College yesterday.

“We had a meeting to draw attention to the public of Barbados to the various forms of disrespect that we were suffering as a Union. And the best way to have that meeting and to get our matters across to the public was to take it public,” she explained.

“And they want to deduct our salaries for a day for having the march that was caused by their disrespect… But, who is paying you, the teachers for all the vacation classes you are having free of cost this Easter holiday? Who is paying you for your work with the Key Club, Interact Club, Literary and Debating Society, Language Clubs... Every time you pay for lunches, uniforms, shoes, books, tours, paper to print the SBAs and the ink – who is paying you for all of that?... We do all of this because we are teachers, more interested in the ‘poor children’ than the persons who like to portray us differently, at so many levels,” she asserted.
According to Redman, her members are not fazed or scared. She stated that threats of a pay deduction will not deter them from doing what they are forced to do to demand respect and consideration like any other workers in Barbados.

“And we will fight the efforts to deduct our monies,” she stressed.

Redman strongly believes that the Ministry of Education is determined to stop the teacher trade union from meeting. She also pointed out that the Ministry has responded to every meeting BSTU has sought to hold as industrial action.

“When the present Chief Education Officer held meetings with the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), nobody in the position that she now holds was writing her and telling her that those meetings would be seen as industrial action,” she recalled.

Redman told members that there is a concerted attempt to undermine Unions in Barbados, “We see an attempt to instil fear in the hearts and minds of members and to break the backs of the Unions. But, we are not fearful and our backs cannot be broken”.

“The law in relation to the docking of pay is written in such a way that it allows for discussion of the circumstances leading to the strike action, when it is strike action. Ours was not strike action. If culpability is on the part of the employer then there is precedent for reasonableness and fairness to operate and for the recognition that the union was left with no choice but to strike, and therefore pay should not be docked,” she added. (TL)