English Staff back full strike threat

By Andrea Sophocleous

THE ENGLISH School Staff Association (ESSA) last night voted overwhelmingly in support of strike action if all else fails in their standoff with the school’s headmaster.

In a meeting lasting almost four hours, teachers passed two motions, one approving ESSA’s actions so far and giving it a mandate to proceed further on their behalf, and the other backing strike action if other measures adopted by the union failed.

ESSA president Antonis Antoniou told the Cyprus Mail after the meeting that the vote in favour of strike action had been “almost unanimous”, with 90 per cent of teachers backing the motion.

Earlier in the week, 18 teachers threatened to resign their posts unless the school board took decisive action towards resolving the current crisis.

Teachers at the English School are angry over what they see as favouritism shown by the headmaster Thomas Thomas in the promotion of a female member of staff to a Senior position, as well as his “autocratic” style of management.

ESSA has called on the school board to resolve the issue through the establishment of an ad-hoc committee to examine the background to the row.

Antoniou said yesterday an ad-hoc committee would enable the teachers and the board to “start from scratch” and be in a better position to resolve the matter.

The teachers are expecting to hear from the Labour Minister today. The Ministry earlier this week appeared to show support for the creation of an ad-hoc committee.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.