By a vote of 165 to 142 Monday morning, members of the St. Croix chapter of the American of Federation of Teachers ratified a new three-year contract with the V.I. government.
Members of the St. Thomas AFT were to vote on the contract at a meeting set to start at 5:30 Monday evening.
The contract is the first in eight years and, gauging by the reaction of many present at Monday’s vote at the Educational Complex, a consensus was far from achieved.
"The package isn’t ideal," said Maria "Chi Chi" Heywood, a vice president of the St. Croix AFT. "The ideal is not possible in the economic situation we’re living in."
According to union officials, the agreement includes $8.6 million in salary increases for union members for the 1994-95 and 2000-01 school years. But it releases the government from 50 percent of all claims to retroactive wages owed.
Additionally, the AFT agreed to waive all rights to negotiated wages for the 1995-96 school year. The waiver excludes union members who were employed between 1994 and 2000 but resigned or retired prior to the effective date of the start of the 2000-01 salary schedule.
The agreement covers three years, beginning Friday and running through Aug. 31, 2003. Beginning Sept. 1, 2002, the AFT and the government can also re-enter into wage negotiations for the third year of the contract.
Tyrone Molyneaux, president-elect of the St. Croix AFT, voted against the agreement. He said teachers were giving up too much, especially half of the hundreds of millions of dollars owed by the government in retroactive wages.
"We’re getting nothing from this deal," Molyneaux said. "This increase is nothing. It is a real insult to our members."
But outgoing union local president Cecil Benjamin said that considering the government’s empty coffers, the union didn’t have any choice but to come to an agreement.
"I’m personally not satisfied," Benjamin said. "This is the best we can do under the given circumstances."
