Con­tract teach­ers through­out To­ba­go have won a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion which they had filed against the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) for their rights to all gra­tu­ity pay­ments and all monies ow­ing to them.

The THA has been or­dered to im­me­di­ate­ly pay the teach­ers all out­stand­ing pay­ments, plus in­ter­est,

In a de­ci­sion de­liv­ered in the High Court to­day, the teach­ers claimed for a de­c­la­ra­tion of in­equal­i­ty of treat­ment. They said the THA had treat­ed them un­equal­ly—as com­pared to the per­ma­nent teach­ers in To­ba­go, and al­so un­equal­ly as com­pared to con­tract teach­ers in Trinidad—by pay­ing them less and not al­low­ing them the same amount of leave and ben­e­fits.

In his High Court judge­ment, Jus­tice David Har­ris dis­missed the claims of the teach­ers to be made per­ma­nent. How­ev­er, he or­dered that the THA breached the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of the con­tract teach­ers to equal­i­ty of treat­ment, by fail­ing to pay them their out­stand­ing gra­tu­ities.

The teach­ers were rep­re­sent­ed by Mar­tin George and Com­pa­ny.