MONTEGO BAY, St James — Newly installed President of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), Doran Dixon has served notice that teachers are not prepared to engage in another round of prolonged negotiations when the five-year wage freeze ends next year.

He said the teachers’ initial consent to the wage freeze to facilitate an agreement between Government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was a great show of patriotism and sacrifice, but that the educators deserve fair treatment when the next financial year begins.

“We will be holding the minister (of education), who is on record saying that, recognising the sacrifice made in this wage freeze era, the Government would not want to engage in a prolonged negotiation to settle come April 2015. We hope that the minister can be held to his word,” Dixon told delegates Thursday night at the association’s annual conference at the Hilton Rose Hall in Montego Bay.

He also reiterated utterances by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller acknowledging the sacrifice the teachers have made.

“The prime minister stated that it was the 24 per cent that the JTA provided in terms of the public sector groups that allowed them to get over the threshold that would be a stumbling block in getting an agreement [with the IMF] that we desperately needed. Having said that, we expect that when the time comes we will be given our fair consideration,” said Dixon, who is heading the teachers’ union for a second time, having previously served between 2008 and 2009.

— Horace Hines