Aug. 26, 2008 — While representatives from local teachers' unions gathered on St. Thomas Tuesday to continue hammering out collective-bargaining issues with the V.I. government, teachers and support staff from at least seven of the island's schools took matters into their own hands by calling in sick to protest months of having to work without a contract.
The job action forced many school principals to call off classes after lunch, and students spent most of the morning in auditoriums, libraries, cafeterias or gymnasiums engaging in "group discussions," watching films or playing organized sports games.
"It is what it is — I'm not taking it personally at all," said Sharon McCollum, principal at Ivanna Eudora Kean High School, early Tuesday morning. "Right now our students are safe, we're still meeting their needs and we're making sure they're fed. Those are our top priorities at this point in time. And we're going to be on early dismissal after lunch."
Out of the school's 168 employees, only about 45 showed up for work in the morning, she said. The lack of movement on the otherwise lively campus — its empty parking lots and the closing of many windows and doors to shield against a continuous film of rain — painted a dismal picture in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle that marked the opening of school Monday.
The situation was no different on many other campuses, including Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School, Joseph Gomez Elementary School, Joseph Sibilly Elementary School, Lockhart Elementary School, Gladys Abraham Elementary School and Yvonne Milliner-Bowsky Elementary School.
"Yesterday was a wonderful day," said Carol Callwood, AFT building representative at Boschulte. "But that doesn't change the fact that we don't have a contract and we don't know when we're going to get one. We disrupted school for a purpose, and that purpose is to show the government that we are needed, and they can't continue to disrespect the people that they need. So I'm sick today — we're all sick. Some of us are physically sick and some of us are mentally distressed that it has taken over a year to create a successful contract — not a new contract, but a successful contract that addresses a couple of items in the language and some money issues."
The sick out has nothing to do with AFT's leadership, Callwood said: "We were all at a membership meeting recently, and some of the building representatives from almost all of the schools got together and decided to do something about the situation. We canvassed the other members and it seemed that we had a lot of support — but it had nothing to do with the union's leadership. They didn't know anything about it."
Neither did the government, said Jeanette Smith-Barry, St. Thomas-St. John insular superintendent.
"It's unfortunate that we're here right at the beginning of the school year," she said Tuesday. "It doesn't give students the best impression of our commitment to them."
The back and forth between the unions and the government reached a head earlier this month after the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB) declared an impasse in the negotiation process and ordered that the matter go into mediation. Two months before, union members rejected the government's contract proposal, which was put together after more than a year of negotiations between the two parties.
The proposed contract would have run from Sept. 1, 2007, to Aug. 31, 2011. Under the proposal, teachers and professionals with degrees would have starting salaries of $34,000 and top salaries of $71,261 by 2010. Instead of a salary increase for 2007-2008, teachers would get a one-time bonus of $1,700. (See "PERB Calls for Mediation in Teacher Contract Dispute.")
"We did reach an impasse, so mediation is occurring right now," Smith-Barry said. "We expected that the union would honor that, because they did agree to it, which means that we did not expect today's situation to be happening. But we were able to have at least a half a day of instruction, and we're happy that it wasn't district-wide. We're also pleased about the schools that did stay in session."
The second day in the mediation process began Tuesday, according to Vernelle de Lagarde, AFT president on St. Thomas. The union's issues center on appropriate salaries for teachers and paraprofessionals, the length of the school year, better working conditions, federal teacher certification requirements, and credit or salary increases earned for years of experience.
"We're working on all these things, and will be making sure we get a contract that's in the best interest of all our members," de Lagarde said. "We don't know how long this is going to last, but hopefully we'll make it through with an end product works for both sides."
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