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Hon. Faber Responds To Union Busting Allegations
posted (April 24, 2017)
And so, while Faber disavows any knowledge of meddling in the teachers union election, he knows all about that million dollar honorarium that his ministry is paying to those teachers who didn't strike. Except it's not a million dollars - it's a little more than half that. Today, Faber told us he is mightily peeved that everyone - from the unions, to the chamber to the NGO's to the media - jumped all over him and his government for the payout - and no one even bothered to get all the facts:...

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"Nobody, including the media, has ever written to us and said: can you give us the details of how things are going to be done here and what is it that is specifically being done? You would think that those things would be done before you put out a press release as an entire entity to say that we condemn; That is my issue with them. So I'm very disappointed at that. So that all those who have gone half-cocked saying: oh, it's a million dollars - are really…they miss read or they took it too far. In fact, the figures are looking more like $600 thousand dollars. And I understand all those who say: listen, that's a lot of money. So let's break it down to brass tacks, as my colleague Michael Finnegan would say, forget the strike days we have teachers turning up for four days of work in January that was sabotaged by the BNTU. They told their members don't turn up. So we have teachers that turned up for those four days of work, are those teachers not to be compensated in any way? Is it so unfair to offer something to those teachers who turned up for those four days in their Christmas break so to speak? And then, those teachers are then required to take three days out of their Easter break and then three days out of their summer break. If you add up all of these days, these are ten additional days that those teachers are asked to show up to work, outside of the planned days. Don't those teachers deserve anything? Is it a waste to give those teachers an honorarium? Because if you pay them their daily rate for those ten days, which we did not attempt to do, it would be far exceeding a million dollars. Is it unfair to do that for them? Do they not deserve some kind of compensation for those ten days? If you think, and I don't care who says it, I don't care if da the chamber, da the NTUCB, or anybody who criticizes me for giving something to those teachers who will have to give ten days outside of the eleven days that they already worked for the strike some kind of honorarium; then breda I am wrong and I will go down on that one. Senator Courtney is now saying that it is illegal. Well, every year when we read the budget the Ministry of Education gets a huge chunk of money. The bulk of that money is for salaries. There is no exact amount so to speak that the salaries come up to every year. There is an amount that is allotted in the budget for salaries. That figure fluctuates from year to year. Nobody can determine how many teachers will get pregnant, how many teachers will go on long leave, there are a number of things that will affect how much you actually spend on the budget. And it is through that line item on the budget that the honorarium is being paid which is why some of the teachers still have not received their honorarium. Why? Because we insist that it must go through as a part of the salaries and in fact for the government teachers in order for us to have gotten things in time we would have had to have had it from the start of the month when the decision was made. So we had to wait until the beginning of May, which is still upcoming, for us to make the submission so that there will be paid, I think, 377 teachers or so at the end of May. And likewise, some of the denominational teachers have not gotten because they will be paid in the normal process of salaries and the salaries come at the end April. So to say that it is illegal is utter nonsense. It comes out of the salaries allocation that goes for teachers.

Jules Vasquez, 7News
"I understand you say that the emoluments for teachers has a lot of wiggle room because of the variances in this huge administrative cost that this ministry has to carry, however, I can't imagine that the end of the last fiscal you all had half a million in undisbursed emoluments lying around - flex funds. So I can't imagine that, while there is flexibility in the fund that you have more than half a million dollars in flex funds that you could just say: oh you could just move that over because nobody no a get pregnant this year, no maternity leave. I'm saying that at the end of the day..."

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"Jules, the point is this; the money that is going to be used does come from the budgeted amount. If for some reason there is a shortfall, maybe because of us giving this kind of payment, in terms of what is allotted as emoluments for teachers, then we then ought to go back and request. That is the way the system is set up. But for my friend Mr. Courtney and all the others who are making such ridiculous claims to say that it ought to have gone right away, we should have gotten the permission of the national assembly, which I will say is not altogether wrong- that could have been one way of doing it- but the way that we've done it is not necessarily illegal and that is my point to him."

And so while Faber has no regrets and no apologies for the payout, he did explain that the most any teacher will get is about $500 dollars:

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"If you attended the bulk of the days in the strike period, you can qualify for, I think, maybe $300 and if you attended four days, the bulk of those four days, it may have been you could qualify for $200. But no teacher received in excess of $500 on honorarium. Look, the teachers who went on strike were paid their full 11 days. And so we maintain that this is not the ideal thing, probably not, but nothing illegal, no kind of hanky-panky going on, no kind of twisting. In fact, I am glad that because we are doing things properly; you were hinting to those who were accusing us of meddling, well if were meddling wouldn't the people have gotten their money before the convention to affect the outcome…to show you that it is utter nonsense. It is the PUP and their friends, who quite often get into these positions in the chamber and in the NTUCB and in the NGO communities that push these agenda; and why I say that? It's because they didn't bother to check for the facts."

Jules Vasquez - 7News
"Sir, so to speak specifically about the charge from the unions, do you reject the claim that it is trying to union bust by rewarding those who did not stand with the unions?"

Hon. Patrick Faber- Minister of Education
"It is not rewarding those who did not stand with the unions; it is rewarding those who stood for our children, it is rewarding those who came additional days."

As he indicated, some teachers have already gotten their honorarium, while others will get it at the end of the month.

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