Strike season could be extended to include nurses, while education officers confer on stalled salary negotiations

A “strike season” appears to be underway, since more government workers are considering protest action to highlight their grievances and force the Gaston Browne Administration to address them immediately.

Teachers got the ball rolling this week with a sit-in at public schools across Antigua and Barbuda.

Now, nurses – who expressed solidarity with teachers last week – are also threatening to take action.  However, they will first meet on Thursday, April 20, to determine their course of action.

In addition, REAL News has learned that another group of education workers is contemplating protest action.

A source tells our News Department that technicians – i.e., education officers (EO) – held an emergency meeting in the parking lot of their Ministry’s headquarters this morning, April 18.

Allegedly the meeting relates to salary increases they have been trying to get finalized for some time now, the source says.  It is alleged that an intervention with the Establishment Division – by a senior administrative officer – put a kink in the negotiations, upsetting the affected EO’s.