THE IDEA OF a merger of the unions in education is a good one, in principle.
However, do not expect to see members of the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU), Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), the Association of Public Primary School Principals (APPSP) and the Barbados Association of Principals and Public Secondary Schools (BAPPSS) to be linking hands and singing Solidarity For Ever anytime soon.
During an address at the BUT’s Teachers’ Week last October, former union official John Goddard called for that organisation and the smaller BSTU to join ranks. Last Monday, general secretary of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), Dennis de Peiza, spoke at the opening of the BUT’s annual conference where he suggested all four unions unite.
Responding to the suggestion, BSTU president Mary Redman said her union made the offer to the BUT in the 1970s and it was rejected by the then BUT president John Cumberbatch.
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