Times Of Swaziland: COURT GIVES E1.2M ‘XMAS  BONUS’ TO SOS TEACHERS

COURT GIVES E1.2M ‘XMAS  BONUS’ TO SOS TEACHERS
================================================================================
 BY MBONGISENI NDZIMANDZE  on 05/12/2017 01:07:00


MBABANE – At least 22 SOS High School teachers will have a Merry Christmas
indeed as they will share over E1.2 million among themselves.
This comes after the Industrial Court ordered the registration of a default
judgment which was issued by the executive director of the Conciliation
Mediation and Arbitration Commission (CMAC), that the management of the school
should continue paying them monthly allowances on top of their salaries.
A default judgment is a binding judgment in favour of either party, based on
some failure to take action by the other party. Most often, it is a judgment in
favour of a plaintiff when the defendant has not responded to a summons or has
failed to appear before a court of law.
The payment of the allowance would be backdated from January 2014 to date.
The teachers had been receiving the monthly allowance which was, however,
stopped after government took over the operations and management of the school.
This resulted in the 22 teachers approaching the court where they were seeking
an order for the registration of the default judgment. SOS and government were
opposing the registration of the default judgment.
The teachers were represented by Labour Consultant Alex Fakudze. Government had
argued that the payment of accumulated stipend arrears was not binding to it.
The State also averred that there was a memorandum of agreement that existed
between it and SOS Children Association of Swaziland, where it was agreed that
it (government) would take over the operations and management of the primary and
high school in accordance with the government policies and regulations.