The island’s teacher Trade Unions share the view that too many schools are not meeting basic requirements as laid down in the Safety and Health at Work Act.
According to President of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), Pedro Shepherd, matters such as accessibility, adequate bathroom facilities, ventilation, fire escapes – are real.
“We are currently in decision with the teachers at the St Lawrence School where there are serious problems emanating from the Graeme Hall Swamp and the environs,” he highlighted during the BUT/ Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) meeting held at Solidarity House last Friday.
“We had to raise concerns about rodents, bees, flies, mosquitoes, dust, mould – you can list a whole list of things invading our schools.”
BSTU President Mary Redman also stressed to members that safety and health is an issue that too many of them face at their schools.
“Every worker in this country has the right to work in a safe and healthy work environment. It is guaranteed to us under the Safety and Health at Work Act. So much so, that if your conditions cease to be safe or healthy and you have reported that - section 104 allows you remove yourself from that environment,” she told members.
“The fact is that too many teachers in Barbados work in conditions that are unsafe and unhealthy. Unsafe, even as it relates to student on teacher violence, unsafe as it relates to student on student violence…We have to deal with discipline in schools and how we are going to affect and effect change in that regard.”
As it relates to reoccurring environmental issues at Combermere School, Redman made it clear “we cannot expose ourselves to unhealthy working conditions and we all know what has been happening at Combermere. We know what happened just under two years ago and the fact that persons had to be relocated. So, it was nothing new, it was nothing strange.”
“So, when the public can make statements to the effect that the teachers don’t want to work, the teachers are complaining about being ill, how come it’s only the teachers becoming ill…The teachers spent weeks working in substandard conditions, when from week two I had informed the Chief Education Officer that the problems had resurfaced at the school and I would have hoped that the Principal would have done the same thing”. (TL)
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