St. Lucia Teachers' Union

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Message from the General Secretary

Date: Tuesday Oct 01, 2013

On behalf of the executive of the St. Lucia Teachers’ Union (SLTU) I welcome all teachers back to school for the academic year 2013 – 2014. I trust that your vacation was rejuvenating. I also wish you good health and God’s richest blessing for throughout this academic year.

Members, the SLTU continues to advocate on your behalf. These are challenging times and the thrust throughout the world is to cut cost because of fiscal difficulties.  St. Lucia is not immune to the fiscal dilemmas facing the world. Notwithstanding, the quality of our education system must not be compromised. We believe that investments in education produce immeasurable economic returns. Therefore, our fight for proper working conditions, greater benefits for teachers and proper remuneration will always be unwavering.

At present the SLTU is working with the Ministry of Education to bring resolution to a number of outstanding matters. Some of these include: Sabbatical Leave, Vacation Leave running concurrently with Maternity Leave and August Salary for Temporary Teachers. Let me highlight the progress that is being made on the aforementioned issues.

• Sabbatical Leave - Significant progress has been made on Sabbatical Leave. Currently, the draft policy on Sabbatical Leave is being reviewed and it has been agreed that Sabbatical Leave will be advertised during this term to allow for members to begin accessing it by January 2014.
• Maternity Leave and Vacation Leave - At the last meeting with the Ministry of Education the Ministry agreed with the SLTU that maternity leave should not have an impact on vacation leave. Therefore it was decided that a memorandum of understanding between the union and the Ministry will be drafted by the end of September 2013.
• August Salary for Temporary Teachers – The SLTU proposed to the Ministry of Education to appoint temporary teachers as of August 15. Though acknowledging the merits of our arguments the Ministry of Education is claiming that because of financial constraints they would not be able to appoint all temporary teachers from August 15. Therefore the Ministry has given an undertaking to consider appointing those temporary teachers doing the Diploma in Education with the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College from August 15.

The attainment of an allowance for teachers is a great achievement for the SLTU. The Teacher’s Material Allowance is an allowance for teachers. It would be disrespectful for anybody to ask of you to account for things that belong to you. In this same vein, it would be very disrespectful for any principal or ministry official to ask of you to account for your allowance. The Teacher’s Material Allowance will be paid for the first time to teachers at the end of September 2013. The Ministry of Education has assured the union that all is in place to make those payments.

The SLTU participated in the 36^th Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Union of Teachers held in Guyana from August 4 – 10, 2013. At that conference our President Bro. Julian Monrose was elected as Second Vice President and our Sister Virginia Albert Poyotte was elected as General Secretary of the Caribbean Union of Teachers. We congratulate them for their achievements.

We should celebrate our achievements as a union and I invite members to do so by participating in activities to commemorate Teachers’ Week 2013. Teachers’ Week will be celebrated from September 29 to October 6, 2013 under the theme “Quality Teachers for Global Citizenship”. Please find attached the activities for Teachers’ Week 2013.

Your participation in this organization is what makes the organization vibrant. Let’s continue to work together to build on our achievements. There is much to be done and we depend on you for support.

Unite for power and progress. Long Live the SLTU!!!

Yours in the Struggle

Don C. Howell

General Secretary

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