Five Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion teach­ers, with a com­bined ser­vice to To­ba­go of more than 80 years, have been fired from the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, In­no­va­tion and En­er­gy, head­ed by Chief Sec­re­tary Kelvin Charles.

Two ed­u­ca­tors were fired at the end of the last term and three just last Mon­day.

With the sup­port of the Ear­ly Child­hood Teach­ers’ Trade Union (EC­CE­TU), the mat­ter is now be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Court and the Min­istry of Labour.

Ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments ob­tained by To­ba­go To­day, the di­vi­sion’s ac­tions stemmed from the teach­ers’ re­fusal to sign a con­tract dat­ed April 3, 2017-April 2, 2018.

How­ev­er, the teach­ers said they were giv­en the con­tracts months af­ter it had ex­pired and claimed they were de­nied the chance to get a lawyer to re­view it.

The union’s To­ba­go rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Iyan­na Charles-Beard, said while the di­vi­sion’s re­fusal to al­low teach­ers to get ex­pert opin­ion af­fect­ed all teach­ers, it was “dis­turb­ing to those over 60 years.”

“They were con­cerned as the con­tract said once teach­ers were over 60 they would not be reem­ployed,” Charles-Beard said.

She said the old­er teach­ers con­veyed their views to the THA via a let­ter, ar­gu­ing that as “per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees... they were en­ti­tled to a pen­sion as they were near­ing re­tire­ment.” They were sent home im­me­di­ate­ly.

The teach­ers were giv­en one month’s salary and a ter­mi­na­tion let­ter by the di­vi­sion sin­cere­ly ex­press­ing its grat­i­tude for their “years of com­mit­ment and ser­vice to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.”

The younger teach­ers were told that “in the cir­cum­stances,” the di­vi­sion “was left with no choice but to deem (their) em­ploy­ment sta­tus...ter­mi­nat­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.”

They too were giv­en one month’s pay and a let­ter stat­ing the di­vi­sion was “grate­ful” for their ser­vices.

EC­CE­TU pres­i­dent Jamiele Syd­ney said since the THA be­gan fir­ing teach­ers, the oth­er teach­ers have signed the “il­le­gal” con­tract.

“What this means is that af­ter they have giv­en years of ser­vice they now go home with one month’s pay, no gra­tu­ity and no pen­sion,” he said.

“Once the teach­ers were fired ear­li­er in the year, the di­vi­sion be­gan writ­ing threat­en­ing let­ters to the oth­er em­ploy­ees and they soon caved in and most signed.”

Call­ing the THA’s ac­tions “il­le­gal,” Syd­ney point­ed to a clause in the THA con­tract which stat­ed that “the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act Chap­ter 88:01 of the Laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go does not ap­ply to this con­tract on­ly on the grounds of the ex­piry of the term grant­ed.”

Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of the age lim­it out­lined in the doc­u­ment, Syd­ney said the na­tion­al pol­i­cy doc­u­ment on ear­ly child­hood care and ed­u­ca­tion stat­ed that “staff may on­ly work ...from the age of 18 to 65.”

He said the “af­fect­ed per­sons and their fam­i­lies are up­set and this is not the end of the road.”

In an emailed re­sponse to the mat­ter, Chief Sec­re­tary Charles said the THA will not en­gage in dis­cus­sions on the two teach­ers who have tak­en the mat­ter to the In­dus­tri­al Court.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that “the three EC­CE teach­ers who re­fused to sign the con­tracts have been in­formed of the im­pli­ca­tions of their ac­tion, as they are not en­ti­tled to the pay­ment of any gra­tu­ity in the ab­sence of a con­tract.”

He said the Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion is now dis­cussing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion the trans­fer of the EC­CE from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to the THA.

He said a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with the min­istry has been draft­ed and once it is ap­proved by Cab­i­net, “the is­sues of the en­ti­tle­ment of the EC­CE teach­ers to sev­er­ance pay/pen­sion will be ad­dressed.”