NAME OF FEATURE | THE GLEANER | SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2024 23 were settled in 1966. These included: 1. Study Leave with pay – Six months with full pay, six months without salary. This was coming from a situation in which probationers (now referred to as pre-Trained Teachers) going to pursue studies had to resign their position, thus breaking service. 2. 1973 – The teaching service underwent its first reclassification exercise. SOME OUTCOMES: i) schools were classified based on enrolment into the current Categories 1 through 5 and principals salaried accordingly. ii) parity of pay for all positions at the tertiary level. iii) Establishment of Senior Teacher (Posts of Special Responsibility) Middle managers in schools. (iv) Health Insurance. (N.B. A separate publication, ‘The J.T.A. – A Chronology of Achievements’, itemises the achievements of the successive committees over its sixty-year history, as well as provides a Compendium of Signed Heads of Agreement). MEMBERSHIP EXPECTATIONS VIS-A-VIS AGREEMENT In the 58 years since the first 1966 agreement, and especially so in the last revision of salaries, signed in 2023, there have always been mixed reactions by teachers, spanning the gamut between outright condemnation and elation; not on every item, of course. We have faced the vilification of the public when we resorted to industrial action in furtherance of our claims, and we have used all strategies in our arsenal over this period. We have won friends and created many enemies. Through it all we’ve held the torch aloft. There were 24 such committees (even during years in which there were no negotiations). Congratulations to all those stalwarts who have served in different capacities over the last 60 years. Their names are too numerous to mention here, but I am daring to list (in no particular order) some whose footprints have survived the attrition of the waves: Dorothy Raymond, Evangeline Martin, S.O. Ramsay, Basil Benjie, Paul Adams, Dundee D Hewitt and Faye Saunders. Trade unionism is like treading a treadmill. You’ll find yourself fighting battles won before and making the same arguments defending issues already settled. Sybil Slack probably said it best, “… a battle never stays won. Rights and freedoms have to be constantly defended… (and) won again and again. Unfortunately, history places no obligation on those who have not lived through its incidents; memories are short, and issues once resolved have an ugly habit of reappearing as if they had never been considered before.” Patrick Smith is a former President, former Interim Secretary General and a historian. JTA 60TH ANNIVERSARY FEATURE Then JTA President LaSonja Harrison; President Elect Leighton Johnson and Immediate Past President Winston Smith take deep interest in responses of members to the salary offer.
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