Union wants

Vanuatu

Union wants teachers back on jobs

THE Vanuatu Teachers Union is threatening legal action against the ministry of education if 90 reinstated school teachers are not allowed to return to work. Union general secretary Calo Charles said the teachers had been reinstated by the training service commission and were to have resumed duty on May 23, but had been prevented from doing so by the education minister.

Charles said the decision by the ministry not to allow the teachers to return to work, and to withhold their salaries, was in breach of the Teaching Service Act. He says under the act, only the commission had the power to terminate and reinstate and teachers who had been reinstated by the commission were entitled to their salaries. The 90 were among 700 teachers suspended in February for taking part in a strike in support of striking civil servants demanding a pay increase.