A while ago teachers at EPI, workers at Ambiente Feliz, and SKOA, with the support of Seppa, protested the nonpayment of overtime.
It’s a touchy subject.
But my friends in education tell me there are many grey areas in the way overtime is granted and paid for.
Basically a teacher is obliged to teach X number of hours and is also entitled to Y number of prep hours, time to correct papers, write exams. Then Z are extra hours granted to fill in for missing teachers, or to oversee students, etc., and at the end of the month the XYZ salary looks and feels much better than the X alone!
Which remind me of a CFT report of yesteryears, by Gradus Maximus, regarding Police, Customs & Fire Fighters overtime.
https://www.cft.cw/finish/63-aruba/1562-20190927-analyse-overwerkkosten-aruba
It contained much interesting information and good context analysis of GOA’s wasteful ways.
According to that report overtime hours increase gradually, along with the number of staffers employed that also increases overtime and the number of staffers working overtime, which climbs even higher, due to absenteeism, caused by illness, which correlate. Overworked people fall sick. The more absenteeism we suffer, the more overtime we pay. And my friends in education tell me that the more overtime granted, the more stress develops, the more illness strikes, the more absenteeism and burn out metastasize.
Catch 22 from the report: Formation plans and core task analyses are a must, to determine what the optimal level of staffing is, because in the absence of current formation plans based on measurable indicators and defined and specified tasks, it is impossible to determine what the optimal level of staffing is.
And talking about the Optimal Level of Staffing: Some US States adopted a policy to have only one cop per patrol car. They do this to improve the performance of the cops in general, or so they won‘t draw their guns to kill so fast.
In the past you never saw a patrol car with more than one police officer in, while here in Aruba patrol cars with two or three officers are the norm.
That means there is a policy to spend double, that is probably also why they need larger vehicles, that consume more gas.
Why not looks into a policy where we only need half the operational expenses for the same number of patrols? Or even better, give double the amount of coverage for the same expense? And most likely much better service.
The cops won’t like it since it is nicer to have somebody next to you in the car to talk to…. But what about talking and listening to the PUBLIC about expense reduction? Instead of sitting in air-conditioned closed vehicle, walking/cycling through a neighborhood/street brings law enforcement closer to the actual public, they are sworn to serve.
Who is looking into this? Why is nobody asking these questions? Who cares?
