BNTU President, “We Don’t Need Their Approval”

Responding to the Ministry of Education’s refusal to grant time off for the meeting, B.N.T.U. President Nadia Caliz made it clear that they don’t need the ministry’s approval. She urged members to take a stand by attending the meeting, emphasizing the importance of reaching a certain threshold of voters for the union’s mandate to be valid. Caliz accused the ministry of trying to frustrate the process, but she remains determined to push forward.

 

Nadia Caliz, President, B.N.T.U.

“For me now, while members are in my inbox and their branch leaders, we have to formalize and that is the reason for tomorrow’s meeting. I also want to tell my members, as you leader I am testing you out. You need to have the guts to come out and you have been screaming strike, strike, strike. But if you cannot come out tomorrow and vote, I want to know are you really ready for the strike you have been clamoring for. That is a test for me as a leader. Teachers are wondering if they will be duct. Teachers are wondering what will happen to their salary. So, when you come out and say you don’t approve it is for you to cut down the numbers and we definitely need to get one thousand, five hundred votes. So, it is a move to cut down. So if my members want something and they don’t give the mandate, because if we don’t get the mandate we cant move forward. They need to understand what is at stake here. While I am not in the classroom, I prefer to lose a day pay and gain more than to just sit there trying to protect that and suffer, suffer.”