Delegate to Congress Donna Christian-Christensen came out Tuesday on both sides of the recent and continuing sickouts by public school teachers and safety services personnel — and assailed the Turnbull administration for what she called its failure to meet with union leaders to address their "well-founded gripes."
The disgruntled government workers "have very legitimate concerns that must be addressed," she said in a release from her Washington office. At the same time, she decried "the plight of the children and their families during these job actions."
Concerns about "raises and other actions taken by the present adminstration, having been ignored, are now beginning to come to fruition," she said, "making it extremely difficult to reach such resolution."
Christensen said she had "repeatedly advocated a frank, open and purposeful set of meetings between the administration and the unions." Had there been such meetings, she said, "we would at least be on the road to some agreed-to plan to address the long-overdue retroactive payments, and we would not be neglecting the needs of our children."
Further, the delegate stated, the administration's failure to meet with union leaders has left her office without direction in terms of efforts it could "begin to undertake on the administration's and the workers' behalf."
Even so, she said, it's not too late for the administration "to reconsider its actions, and for such talks to take place "for the good of our children and the territory."
