Union scoffs at claim bursars’ jobs are safe

National Workers Union (NWU) General Secretary Granville Valentine says the Ministry of Education’s announcement that bursars will not be impacted by the new payroll system to be implemented in schools is a “smokescreen”.

Valentine, in a Gleaner interview on Monday, said the 410 bursars represented by the union, as well as the approximately 100 clerks, remain restive following Education Minister Fayval Williams’ announcement last week at the Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s 58th annual conference in St James.

Williams told the group that the bursar-paid school system is to be phased out and will be replaced by the MyHR Plus automated system.

The minister said that the technology would eliminate late payments to teachers who will begin receiving salaries from the central government.

On Monday, the education ministry said that there was no plan to displace bursars from the school system.

It said the move to remove the salary payment responsibility from bursars will not affect the other duties they currently have in schools.

But Valentine noted that Williams was “disrespectful” to bursars by announcing the change without notifying the Bursars Association of Jamaica or the NWU.

Several attempts by The Gleaner to reach Portia Holness, industrial relations representative and past president of the association, were unsuccessful.

“We need more than that,” Valentine said of the press statement. “That’s a smokescreen.”

He said that the industrial relations processes must be adhered to, noting that the education minister’s announcement was “disturbing”.

Valentine said that if Williams fails to meet with the NWU to fully discuss the impending change, there is no guarantee that the workers will not take industrial action.

He said, too, that the NWU would not hesitate to lobby the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, of which it is a founding body, to resist the change.

“Under the collective bargaining process, if a change like this is suggested or intended, one expects that minister or permanent secretary or an appropriate designate would engage us in dialogue as to that proposed change,” he said, adding that bursars were caught off guard.

The ministry said bursars will continue managing the financial and accounting affairs of institutions; developing local instruments to enhance financial control and promote standards procedures for institutions; providing accurate and timely financial information for the school board and the ministry; and supervising the administrative and ancillary staff of the institution.

The Government has said that it had telegraphed the phase-out plan in consultations with school administrators.

But Valentine is insisting that the change represents the removal of the core function of the administrators. He said that removing the core function would reduce bursars to desk clerks.

“You automatically strip the bursars of their core functions. That is where the biggest contention is at, outside of the principles and procedures that they failed to follow,” Valentine said.

“Absolutely no way we will accept that and it cannot happen. ... You can’t get up and just do this madness,” the general secretary added.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com