A ma­jor­i­ty of the na­tion's schools re­mained closed yes­ter­day as teach­ers protest­ed out­side the of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain. On Thurs­day, teach­ers be­gan two days of "rest and re­flec­tion" to protest the slow pace of salary ne­go­ti­a­tions for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 2008 to Sep­tem­ber 2011. Yes­ter­day the union held dis­cus­sions with the CPO for five hours while teach­ers chant­ed and waved flags out­side.

Next Mon­day T&TU­TA will hold an emer­gency gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing to de­ter­mine their next step. The teach­ers were told by pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), Rous­ton Job, that they should be on "red alert" and could be called again to stay away from the na­tion's class­rooms. But the ac­tion of the teach­ers has been slammed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, which in a me­dia re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, stat­ed that with­in the first ten days of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year, TTUTA has tak­en away three days of the chil­dren's ed­u­ca­tion.

"It is re­gret­table that the ed­u­ca­tion of the na­tion's stu­dents has now be­come col­lat­er­al dam­age in this on-go­ing dis­pute be­tween TTUTA and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer," the state­ment said. Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Tim Gopeesingh stat­ed he is con­fi­dent that while the ne­go­ti­a­tions are in progress, teach­ers will con­tin­ue to show ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to the stu­dents who fall un­der their charge and he trusts that they will al­ways en­sure the wel­fare of the chil­dren and the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor re­main their pri­or­i­ty.

The min­istry al­so re­leased re­sults of a sur­vey which showed that on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 7, there was an ab­sen­tee rate of 64 per cent (pri­ma­ry schools) and 49 per cent (sec­ondary). This es­ca­lat­ed on Thurs­day to 64 per cent (pri­ma­ry) and 54 per cent (sec­ondary); and yes­ter­day, 75 per cent (pri­ma­ry) and 65 (sec­ondary).

Job said yes­ter­day an agree­ment could be in sight. "We are hop­ing that we con­tin­ue ne­go­ti­a­tions with an at­ti­tude which must be one of co-op­er­a­tion. It seems that this is now tak­ing place and we must not take any of this for grant­ed and must stay on the alert," he said. He said teach­ers who were present at the protest yes­ter­day must alert their col­leagues of de­vel­op­ments when they re­turn to class­es.

"We have to pre­pare be­cause you have work to do. When we take ac­tion like this it is with bleed­ing hearts. We were re­luc­tant to leave our class­rooms but we have been pushed and this is what hap­pens if you do not set­tle with T&TU­TA in a time­ly fash­ion. When you go back to your own dis­tricts and schools you have to get oth­er teach­ers ready. Go and tell them we are on red alert," Job said.

Sec­ond-vice pres­i­dent of TTUTA, Orville Car­ring­ton, said 75 per cent of schools were closed on Thurs­day. "If there is a need to call again, all schools must shut down. All schools must shut down," he said. Car­ring­ton said the union is wait­ing for the com­ple­tion of the labour mar­ket sur­vey and ob­served that the at­ti­tude of the CPO has changed. He said the mar­ket sur­vey must be com­plet­ed be­fore salaries are de­ter­mined.

"We are us­ing a mar­ket sur­vey. We are seek­ing to get da­ta that would com­plete the sur­vey to de­ter­mine what salaries would be used. We have sensed a change in the mode, a soft­en­ing from the dog­mat­ic po­si­tion that would have nor­mal­ly been adopt­ed. Our in­ten­tion is to com­plete ne­go­ti­a­tions by the end of Sep­tem­ber and we want to move on as quick­ly as pos­si­ble," he said. Car­ring­ton said the protest was an im­por­tant demon­stra­tion al­though they did not reach con­sen­sus at the bar­gain­ing ta­ble.

"We sensed a shift in the at­ti­tude and that is im­por­tant and it came about as a re­sult of your ac­tion last Fri­day, to­day and your in­tend­ed ac­tions. We will be hav­ing a gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing and it will give us some di­rec­tion on how to pur­sue this mat­ter. So keep your ears open and spread the mes­sage. The mo­bil­i­sa­tion should con­tin­ue among your­selves," he said. First vice-pres­i­dent of TTUTA, De­vanand Sinanan, said the gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing emer­gency meet­ing card­ed on Mon­day will de­ter­mine their next step.

"We are aware that a num­ber of schools are closed to­day. We hope that would be suf­fi­cient to send a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the CPO and show that teach­ers are fed up and dis­en­chant­ed to take what­ev­er ac­tion nec­es­sary so we can com­plete this round of ne­go­ti­a­tions. The last salary in­crease for teach­ers was in 2007," he said. Sinanan said teach­ers were not pleased with this state of af­fairs and will take to the streets again if nec­es­sary.

"This ac­tion will be sus­tained un­til we bring about some kind of am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tion to this sit­u­a­tion. You must com­plete the sur­vey and she keeps in­sist­ing that cer­tain pro­ce­dures must be re­viewed," he said.