VZCZCXRO9971
PP RUEHGR
DE RUEHKG #0631/01 2362053
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 242053Z AUG 09
FM AMEMBASSY KINGSTON
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7977
INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINGSTON 000631 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR WHA/CAR (JMACK-WILSON) (BALVARADO) (VDEPIRRO) (WSMITH) 
WHA/EPSC (MROONEY) (FCORNEILLE) 
EEB/ESC/IEC/EPC (MCMANUS) 
SANTO DOMINGO FOR FCS AND FAS 
TREASURY FOR ERIN NEPHEW 
INR/RES (RWARNER) 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: ELAB PGOV ECON EFIN SCUL SOCI ASEC JM XL
SUBJECT: JAMAICA: STEWART TO LEAD JAMAICA TEACHERS UNION, EDUCATORS 
PONDER STRIKE FOR BACK PAY 
 
REF: A. KINGSTON 581 
 
Summary 
------ 
 
¶1. (SBU) As Michael Stewart takes the reins of the Jamaica Teachers' 
Association (JTA), one of the island's largest public sector unions, 
he finds himself caught between: a public education system in 
disarray; an Education Ministry facing severe fiscal restraints, 
demanding greater accountability for performance, and hedging on 
promises of back pay; and a disgruntled membership pondering a 
strike that might delay the beginning of the school year in 
September.  Stewart calls for better relations with the Ministry of 
Education, noting that "we don't want to feel that we are constantly 
under attack by our chief teacher."  End Summary. 
 
"Teach your children well..." 
----------------------------- 
 
¶1. (U) On August 18, Stewart, a high school principal, took over as 
president of the JTA, the labor union representing almost 23,000 of 
the island's oft-maligned public school teachers.  Accepting the 
post at the association's annual convention in Ocho Rios, Stewart 
pledged "to ensure that teachers and teaching redeem the place of 
pride it once occupied." Stewart committed himself to lobbying the 
Government of Jamaica (GOJ) for reduced class sizes, allowing more 
students access to post-secondary education, and more scholarships 
for those studying to be teachers. 
 
¶2. (U) Stewart will have his work cut out for him. Despite the fact 
that, excluding debt servicing, education spending constitutes 
almost thirty percent of the GOJ budget, the Jamaican public 
education system is widely perceived as dysfunctional, and many 
consider public teachers and the JTA part of the problem.  As 
Education Minister Andrew Holness pointed out in his remarks to the 
association on August 19, as many as one quarter of sixth grade 
students were reading at a fourth grade level, while one third were 
academically unprepared for secondary school.  Each year, school 
administrators routinely exclude almost half of 11th graders from 
participating in the Caribbean Examination Council's Caribbean 
Secondary Education Certification (CSEC) examinations, generally 
viewed as an employment qualification certifying the holder as a 
secondary school graduate.  Of those who do take the examination, 
barely more than half pass the English portion while just 43 percent 
pass mathematics.  Most families with the means to do so place their 
children in private schools. 
 
¶3. (U) Under its previous president, Doran Dixon, the JTA proved 
ineffective in countering these trends.  Calling for increased 
teacher salaries while resisting efforts to tie compensation to 
results in the classroom, the JTA attempted to shift responsibility 
for lackluster examination results by blaming the public school 
feeder system through which high-achieving students are channeled 
into the island's top public high schools, leaving the remainder to 
languish in overcrowded and under-resourced institutions. 
Nevertheless, Porus High School, the non-elite public school Stewart 
has administered as principal, has seen its test scores rise under 
his leadership. 
 
"How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?" 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶4. (U) Public school teachers have threatened labor action and 
disruption of the beginning of the 2009/2010 school year, scheduled 
for September 7, if the GOJ fails to present an acceptable formula 
for compensating teachers for USD 90 million in back pay they are 
owed due to a 2007 reclassification.  The reclassification, which 
the Jamaica Labour Party-led (JLP) government inherited from the 
outgoing People's National Party (PNP) government in 2007, was 
designed to make teacher salaries more competitive with those in the 
private sector.  As a result of the reclassification, each of the 
23,000 union members is owed over USD 1,100. 
 
¶5. (U) However, faced with its worst economic crisis in decades, the 
GOJ is poorly situated to make good on the promise.  With its 
economy expected to contract by four percent in 2009, and one of the 
highest levels of public sector debt in the developing world, the 
GOJ has seen its Standard and Poor's debt rating downgraded and is 
widely expected to announce a new agreement with the International 
Monetary Fund for assistance next month (Reftel A).  To avoid 
increasing the USD 1.4 billion public sector wage bill, the GOJ has 
already told public sector employees not to expect the seven percent 
wage hike that had been promised this year. 
 
¶6. (U) On August 17, the JTA rejected Education Minister Andrew 
 
KINGSTON 00000631  002 OF 002 
 
 
Holness's proposal that the government pay off the back wages over 
three years beginning in 2011, threatening to report the GOJ to the 
International Labor Organization (ILO) and intimating some sort of 
labor action that might interfere with the beginning of the new 
school year on September 7.  "We believe that the time of 
correspondents (sic) to and fro is not helping the process of 
advancing the welfare of the Jamaican teachers and...some message 
must be sent," Stewart told the assembled delegates.  "Normality 
cannot be guaranteed for the start of the 09/10 school year..." 
 
¶7. (U) In his response before the JTA's annual convention the 
following day, Holness recognized that the imbroglio had damaged the 
GOJ's credibility with teachers but implored his audience for 
leniency given the GOJ's difficult financial straits.  "This 
Government wants to pay the teachers what they deserve," Holness 
promised, and pointed out that teachers' wages had increased by 59 
percent since the JLP came to power in 2007.  Stewart responded that 
the delegates would have to discuss further the GOJ proposal and the 
possibility of a strike. 
 
Conclusion and Analysis 
----------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Jamaica's education problems run deep.  Many public schools 
are dilapidated, overcrowded, and poorly equipped, while many public 
school teachers are poorly paid and blamed for poor educational 
outcomes that they see as out of their control.  The CSCE tracking 
system channels the nation's brightest students into its best 
schools and opens doors to myriad educational and professional 
opportunities, while consigning the thousands that don't make the 
cut to substandard institutions, poor literacy and math skills, and 
bleak prospects.  Given the GOJ's current economic travails, neither 
major reforms nor increased revenues appear likely. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Furthermore, Stewart takes the helm of a JTA with a 
tarnished national image and a frustrated membership.  Despite 
demands for higher salaries and a greater public appreciation for 
the difficulties they face, the JTA has resisted GOJ efforts to link 
pay to classroom performance.  Similarly, the union's current 
intransigence and threats to strike over the back pay issue have not 
gone over well with the media and the public given the state of 
Jamaica's economy and the GOJ's budgetary constraints.  As he takes 
his new post, Stewart will have to decide whether to appeal to the 
frustrations of his membership by escalating tensions with the 
Education Ministry, or to challenge entrenched attitudes within the 
JTA and meet the GOJ half way.  The stakes for Jamaica's students 
couldn't be higher. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Finally, Minister of National Security Dwight Nelson, who 
was formerly Minister of the Public Sector in the Ministry of 
Finance and Public Sector, bears watching.  Nelson, a trade unionist 
who was appointed to the National Security Ministry in April, 2009, 
retains strong ties to the trade union community and might be 
expected to intervene should the prospect of a strike threaten 
social stability or public safety. End Summary. 
 
Parnell