Resolve the Situation Before the Students’ Return

One of our front page stories in this issue of The VOICE deals with the watchmen – approximately three hundred of them – who are in the employ of the Ministry of Education, absenting themselves from work in an attempt to put pressure on the Government who owes them monies that, despite the Administration’s acknowledgement of the liability in their regard, they have failed to pay up.
Public sympathy and public opinion is on the side of the workers, who have for too long patiently awaited receipt of the outstanding emoluments that is their due.
They have to be commended for choosing this period, when the students are on holiday, for initiating their strike action, rather than abandon their posts at a time when the students would have need of their protective services in order to maintain the atmosphere of security that is essential for their physical well being.
For a school, filled with its contingent of young people and deprived of the protection of security personnel, is like a powder keg just waiting for its fuse to be lit, in anticipation of the devastating explosion that would ensue. And as we have seen, in so many cases, witnessed on television, that have taken place in the United States and Europe (the Columbine incident springs to mind), the fallout can be truly disastrous.

Even though the threat to life and limb has been lessened by the timing of the industrial action – and we stress “lessened” because during this vacation period, many of our schools are being utilized as summer camps for visiting students … who of course still need some level of security –there are still consequences arising out of the walkout by the watchmen.
The Mon Repos School, we are informed, has been broken into and burgled, the perpetrators of the action taking advantage of the lack of security personnel on the premises.
It is to be hoped that the period of industrial action turns out to be short and that the situation returns to normal with the briefest possible delay. It is hard to comprehend why and how it was allowed to get to this stage, when the authorities had long ago agreed that the monies were due to the employees. Procrastination – so common within the modus operandi of the machinery of Government – has once again taken its toll and produced antagonism and confrontation where an amicable and productive working environment should have reigned.
We hope that the parties concerned manage to sort out this misunderstanding with the briefest possible delay, so that the present situation does not extend into the period when the students will be due back at school … for then, not only material things – as unfortunate as that in itself is – will be at risk, but also the physical well-being and, God forbid, even the lives of the country’s children, could be put in danger.