The Supreme Court has ordered the teachers who were on the 11-day strike in October must be paid their full November salary. This came after the Chief Justice granted an injunction against the Ministry of Education who decided to cut their pay, because the Supreme Court will hear full arguments on the case on December 16.
Readers are well aware that the Ministry of Education has tried its best to resolve this matter peacefully by asking for a meeting with the Belize National Teachers Union to discuss the possibility to pay the salaries for those striking teachers using the Union’s strike fund. They have resisted that, and they aren’t even willing to have a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Patrick Faber. It is well documented that the Minister has asked for a 10 member delegation, while they want to force a meeting with the entire 25 member Council of Management.
So, since there could be no negotiations, the Ministry went ahead with the deductions. Rule 102 of the Education Rules, states: “If a labour dispute results in industrial action by teachers or instructors, salaries and wages of persons undertaking such action may not be paid for any day or portion of a day during which they are on strike.” The Education Ministry went ahead with the deductions for the November salary, and realizing that the pay cut was coming, the BNTU hired attorney Eamon Courtenay, who immediately wrote to Deputy Prime Minister Faber requesting that the deductions be put on hold because they intended to bring a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the Ministry’s decision.
The Minister didn’t respond, and so, Courtenay filed an urgent application for injunction, which was heard on Friday. That hearing happened in the judge’s chambers, which meant that the press could not sit in on the hearings. In that session, Courtenay submitted to the court that the BNTU and claimant Adelaida Guerra has a case with merit, and that there is a possibility of victory.
The Solicitor General, Nigel Hawke, disclosed to the court that the Ministry had already finalized the deductions, and so when the striking teachers visited to collect their salary on November 25, they would find that their pay was cut. After consideration of the arguments made by both sides, the Chief Justice, Kenneth Benjamin, granted the injunction and ordered the reversal of the deductions. The first hearing for the actual case happens on December 16. The BNTU’s principal position is that the Ministry does not have the authority to withhold salary for teachers who were on strike. They say that this authority solely vests in the hands of the Managing Authorities of the schools. That position will be tested in the Supreme Court.
In the meantime, the propaganda against the Minister of Education’s decision is that he is somehow trying to punish the teachers by docking their final pay before the Christmas season. What about those students who those striking teachers deprived of a valuable teaching time? That’s 11 days to be exact, and the Ministry is proposing to extend the school year by 6 days, cutting into the Christmas break, and the Easter Break. The teachers are resisting that, saying that they should get their fair share of holidays also. Shouldn’t the students get their fair share of school days as well?
