Times Of Swaziland: TUESDAY AN EXTENDED HOLIDAY – VOW TEACHERS

TUESDAY AN EXTENDED HOLIDAY – VOW TEACHERS
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Phila  Sibiya on 19/01/2019 06:15:00


MANZINI – In what could be seen as a direct response to the head teachers’
statement, teachers  have said next week Tuesday will be an extended holiday.
On Tuesday schools are supposed to open for the first term of 2019 and head
teachers urged parents to send their children to school on the day despite the
challenges of food shortage, stationery and planned civil servants’ strike
action.
However, teachers said from Monday, they would be attending union activities
which were a build-up to their planned strike action set to start on January 28,
2019. They said these activities would run until Friday and would be followed by
the mass industrial action on January 28, 2019, which would run until government
gives the CoLA.
The Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General Sikelela
Dlamini said this decision was taken during union’s general council (GC)
meeting which was held at SNAT Centre yesterday.
He said during the meeting, branch leaders adopted the public sector
associations’ (PSAs) joint plan of action for next week.
planned
He said they agreed that they would mobilise all teachers in their branches to
attend the planned meetings next week, starting from Monday.
Again, Dlamini said the agreement was that teachers would attend the joint
branch meetings without fail because that was where they would come up with a
strategy on how their nationwide strike action, set to start on January 28,
2019, would be carried out.
“Between Monday and Friday, teachers will be attending the joint meetings
which will be held across the country under the banner of PSAs,” Dlamini said.
He added that the GC meeting agreed that any form of intimidation from the
employer would be ignored. He also mentioned that the following week, starting
from Monday to a date unknown, they would engage in a mass strike action, which
would last until the employer heeded to their demand.
The secretary general also mentioned they were aware of the statement made by
head teachers but said it did not affect them because as heads of schools, they
were hired to manage the institutions on behalf of government.
For that reason, he said they could not say anything in public that would make
the employer assume that they were failing to do their job.
intimidate
On that note, SNAT President Mbongwa Dlamini warned head teachers who would
intimidate teachers in any way. He said once they got a report of any form of
intimidation of teachers by head teachers, they would be personal when dealing
with it.
“We are aware that the head teachers who usually do this are not members of
SNAT and we will not leave a stone unturned about their personality,” he said.
On another note, the teachers’ union leaders said in every meeting with their
four unions; SNAT, National Public Service and Allied Workers Union, Swaziland
Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) and Swaziland National Association of
Government Accounting Personnel (SNAGAP) would be represented by members and
leaders.
They urged their members and teachers to be proactive during the meetings as it
would be where they would make resolutions on how to carry on with their
intended mass industrial action.
futile
Meanwhile, efforts of getting a comment from the Principal Secretary (PS) in the
Ministry of Public Service, Evart Madlopha, proved to be futile as his mobile
phone rang unanswered for the better part of yesterday afternoon.
The last call was made at 6:59pm.
Civil servants resolved to strike after government offered them zero per cent as
cost of living adjustment (CoLA) for two consecutive financial years; 2017/18
and 2018/19. During the 2017/18 financial year, their demand was 7.85 per cent
while for the current financial year they want 6.55 per cent.
Their argument is that the inflation rate for the two financial years had eroded
their salaries by 14.5 per cent and demanded government to reimburse them.