Harrison approved JTA signing of wage deal, says Johnson

Immediate past president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), Leighton Johnson, says the organisation's signing of a wage agreement in 2023, which is now the subject of a lawsuit against the association, was done with approval from then president La Sonja Harrison.

Harrison filed the lawsuit against the JTA in July this year, stating that the signing of the wage agreement, which took place during a virtual meeting in March 2023, breached the JTA's constitution.

Harrison had previously argued that Section 14 of the constitution mandates in-person voting, so a virtual meeting was not an appropriate place for such a decision.

But, in his farewell address during the installation of new JTA president, Dr Mark Smith, on Monday night, Johnson asserted that he had Harrison's approval when he signed the wage agreement in her absence.

"It is essential to clarify that the authority to sign the agreement on March 13, 2023 was duly granted to me by the then sitting president of the JTA in accordance with the articles and memorandums of the association. The president at the time was fully aware of the significance of the agreement and the ongoing negotiations," Johnson told the function.

Harrison had walked out of the contract-signing ceremony at the finance ministry's downtown Kingston office, leaving other members of the JTA executive to sign.

Meanwhile, in his inaugural presidential address, Smith said that he agreed with Harrison's refusal to sign the wage agreement in 2023.

Smith also urged Education Minister Fayval Williams to use her portfolio influence to improve teachers' salaries in order to stop the ongoing problem of educators migrating for better-paying jobs overseas.

- Christopher Thomas

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