Former president’s lawsuit against JTA shouldn’t have been filed, say teachers
Published:Monday | August 26, 2024 | 12:08 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
As the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) prepares to answer a lawsuit brought against it by one of its own former presidents, there is uncertainty over whether the legal showdown may splinter the 60-year-old organisation or if it will be treated as a frivolous exercise.
Former president La Sonja Harrison filed the lawsuit in July this year, arguing that the JTA violated its own constitution by signing off on a three-year wage offer from the Government through a virtual special delegates’ vote in March 2023 instead of an in-person meeting.
The Gleaner sought a comment on the matter from Harrison, who attended the JTA’s just-concluded 60th annual conference at the Ocean Coral Spring Hotel in Trelawny. However, she was tight-lipped except to say that “it is not my time to speak yet”.
Newly installed JTA President Dr Mark Smith, likewise, would not speak about the lawsuit, citing advice from the organisation’s lawyers recommending silence on the matter.
“I will refrain from making any public statements as to whether she (Harrison) was right or wrong. I will simply say that she is exercising her constitutional right to pursue a matter she considers a grievance through the courts,” said Smith.
During his inaugural presidential address at the JTA’s conference last Monday, Smith said he had voted against accepting the wage agreement at the heart of the suit in solidarity with Harrison.
“I voted with [former] President Harrison against the salary packages … . I believe, fundamentally, that it was unjust and not in the best interest of the vast majority of our teachers. If we want the migration issue to stop, pay our teachers better,” Smith said at the time.
Heated verbal exchange
The strongest hint of the lawsuit’s divisiveness among the JTA’s leadership was a heated verbal exchange between immediate past president Leighton Johnson and president-elect Mark Malabver during the conference, where Johnson declared that Harrison gave him the authority to sign the wage agreement in March 2023. Harrison herself walked out of the meeting at the Ministry of Finance, where the agreement was signed.
During that argument, Malabver accused Johnson of presenting his own opinion instead of official advice from the JTA’s legal team on whether the association should respond to the suit.
However, while the JTA’s leadership and some of the conference’s delegates were reluctant to speak about the lawsuit, several educators were more open in declaring that the suit was not good for the organisation.
One educator, Violet [name changed], told The Gleaner that Harrison should not have filed the lawsuit while still having membership in the JTA.
“I do not agree for Harrison to take a lawsuit against the JTA because she never agreed on a number of issues, but then she had given the okay that they could go and sign off on it [wage agreement]. If people signed off on what they think is okay for them, why are you now exposing the JTA, and it is not like you are outside of it? I do not think that is really called for,” said Violet.
Another teacher, who did not wish to be identified, said that while she did not agree with Harrison’s lawsuit, the former president had the right to sue the JTA if she wanted.
“It should not have happened, but it is what it is. It happened, and we are moving into the 21st century, and everyone is entitled to recourse or redress,” the teacher said briefly.
Fellow teacher Tamika [name changed] questioned how educators would profit from Harrison’s lawsuit.
“How will that lawsuit benefit teachers? That is my problem because if it was an unlawful act against the JTA’s constitution, how is that going to impact us as teachers? When you are in a lawsuit, it is either going to help one party and hurt the other or hurt one party and help the other,” said Tamika.
This would not be the first time the JTA has endured lawsuits, whether filed by the organisation or against it.
In 2008, the JTA threatened to take legal action against the Government if it failed to reinstitute a 20 per cent duty concession on vehicles.
Ena Barclay, the president at the time, pointed out that travelling officers benefited from the concession over several years, allowing them to buy suitable vehicles to manoeuvre Jamaica’s roads.
Five years later, in 2013, former president Doran Dixon threatened to seek a court injunction blocking the JTA’s withdrawal of his name from the ballot for the June 17-21 presidential election that year, arguing that the association’s action was illegal.
The decision to bar Dixon from that election was taken after he refused to apologise for ‘mongrel dog’ comments that, reportedly, were directed at then education minister Ronald Thwaites. However, the JTA subsequently reinstated Dixon as a candidate for the presidential election.
In 2014, the Supreme Court granted an injunction from Georgia Waugh Richards to bar Norman Allen from being declared the JTA’s president-elect for the 2014-2015 conference year, following a ballot recount where Allen was declared the winner of the presidential election. The Court of Appeal later lifted the injunction.
In the meantime, commenting on Harrison’s lawsuit, Vincent Morrison, president of the Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees, warned that it would set a bad example for onlookers.
“In the trade union movement, what we try to do is to bring people together in unity, to negotiate, and try to find solutions for problems. I think the JTA has really failed, as an organisation in this situation, to get everybody together and work through the issues,” said Morrison. “They have an awesome responsibility to nurture and shape the lives of our young people, and this infighting is not a good example going forward.”