Industrial action by hundreds of members of academic, senior administrative and professional staff at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona will continue until next week. Mona campus administrators in the meantime has said that it will not respond to the industrial action until Monday.
According to Campus Registrar, Dr Donovan Stanberry, a response will be issued once the administration meets with the West Indies Group of University Teachers (WIGUT) union which represents members of staff.
The protest action stems from the union’s dissatisfaction with the pace of wage and fringe benefits negotiations with the university which started in 2020.
According to the union, in the wake of the protest action, students may not be able to access their December 2021 final-exam results as members of staff have vowed neither to attend department, faculty, or university meetings nor participate in activities geared towards the resumption of the new semester beginning January 17.
Academic staff will also not upload marksheets for semester one examinations that would have ended last December, but they have been advised to still complete their markings.
While acknowledging that the disruption would impact the student population, the union’s President Professor Paul Brown believes that the withdrawal of services is necessary.
The parties involved in the negotiation process are The UWI, Mona Campus; the Open Campus; and the Regional Headquarters.
WIGUT found “a level of ineptness, unpreparedness, and disrespect for the process of negotiation by the university management,” said Brown.
Meanwhile, WIGUT said that the proposed four per cent wage hike, which has been accepted by most public-sector workers, would be the union’s starting position.
As at December 31, more than 80,000 public-sector workers had accepted the wage offer for April 2021 to March 2022.
Brown has also called on the Government of Jamaica to intervene in the stalemate.
“As much as it is action geared towards activities on the Mona Campus, we want to hear something definite from the Government of Jamaica in relation to that aspect so that we can conclude the negotiations,” he said.
Brown has urged the management of the university to “get their act together to ensure that those things that are outstanding will be resolved in the shortest possible time.”
“We all live in hope,” Brown said, noting that a meeting with UWI Mona principal, Professor Dale Webber, has been scheduled for Monday.
CMC/
