SNAT petitions Our Lady’s grantee, admin
NHLANGANO – Some members of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) yesterday petitioned Our Lady of Sorrows High School’s sister, the school grantee and administration over the alleged ill-treatment of teachers.
SNAT gave them seven working days to respond to their demands.
This happened yesterday at Our Lady of Sorrows, a school which is under Hluthi in the Shiselweni Region.
SNAT, in its petition, accused the school’s sister, grantee and administration of abusing, exploiting, harassing, humiliating staff, division and locking out teachers.
One of the biggest issues the teachers raised was that the school was making teachers pay rent in the teachers’ houses yet they were not getting housing allowances.
Aware
They claimed that government was fully aware that they were staying in staff houses.
The school management locked the teachers out of their houses because they had not paid rent, something that has affected the teachers in doing their work properly. SNAT, in the petition, shared that they were concerned about the locking out of their members’ children, medication, food and other important items in their houses.
What came as a shock to them, they said, was that the matter was currently in court but the school management still decided to lock them out, instead of waiting for the court’s judgment on the matter.
Petition
SNAT representatives in the school are said to have been actively working on the matter and SNAT in the petition mentioned that they were worried about the union-bashing exerted on their representative, Thulani Dlamini and other members of the union.
They shared that the SNAT National Executive Committee (NEC) and membership noted with concern the continuous alleged union bashing that the mission was doing over teachers. This, they alleged, was not the first time that the Roman Mission (Our Lady of Sorrows) treated Eswatini educators, working in their home country, with that contempt.
“We recall that even in 2023, teachers were subjected to such inhumane, selfish, brutal, unprofessional, slave treatment by sisters of the institution,” reads part of the petition.
It was said by SNAT Secretary General Lot Vilakati that the locking out of the three teachers frustrated all the over 14 000 teachers in the country, hence they would not be able to work. He said the school would not perform well if they continued to mistreat the teachers. This, they said, was continuously deteriorating labour practices in the mission, in particular Our Lady of Sorrows.
According to Vilakati, they were told that the sister was bragging about being in good terms with the Teaching Service Commission (TSC), therefore, teachers’ matters wouldn’t be addressed by the TSC as long as she was still the sister.
“We have the names of the TSC officials and they will be released at a later date,” he said.
Vilakati said they were concerned about the absence of a teachers’ quarters in the school. He said the mission gave the school to government and excluded the houses, which was wrong. He said they would not let the sister have a field day on their members, but would deliver petitions as long as that was not fixed.
Also, Vilakati said as SNAT, they were concerned about the discrimination of teachers by the mission by grouping them into former students and non-former students.
“We are so concerned about the three centres of power existing in the school, that is the administration, the sister and the school grantee,” said Vilakati. It was said that they had to be separated so that whosoever concentrated on the church dealt only with it and did not jumble the powers around as though the school did not have direction.
SNAT then made five demands, one of which was for the Ministry of Education and Training to build teachers’ houses for Our Lady of Sorrows High School. They said while government was building the teachers’ quarters, Our Lady of Sorrows teachers were supposed to be allowed to claim housing allowances to pay rent.
“For now, the rates are too high for a teacher,” reads part of the demands.
In the meantime, they said Our Lady of Sorrows was supposed to charge the gazetted housing rent of E50 that is paid by all teachers who are housed by the school instead of the between E400 to E4 000 currently paid by the teachers. They further demanded that the sister stops union bashing and all the derogative words allegedly directed to
the teachers. Also, SNAT demanded that the sister and the school grantee should stop treating the school as a private school, adding that if they wanted that, they were supposed to remove government teachers and hire their own.
Vilakati said they were expecting a response within seven working days. He said if that did not happen, they would return to deliver another petition, adding that the second petition would be organised with larger groups. The school’s administration received the petition while on the other side of the gate.