And if the IMF had had its way, the docking of salaries would look like child's play in the face of a looming retrenchment.
It's a fate that the unions escaped, at the cost of 10% of their salaries. And as we all know by now, they didn't take that easily, only returning to the classroom and the office when their pay was docked.
And while it seems that the Briceno Administration has won this battle, when asked today, the Minister of Education disagreed with framing it in that way.
Reporter
"Sir, we do have to ask you about the government having seemingly bested the unions and it seems that the strategy for that was docking of teachers pay. Talk to me about how those decisions were made and what's next for the unions in your opinion?"
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"You don't have to ask me... no, I would not at all associate myself with the manner in which you framed the question. I don't think the government at all bested the teachers or the unions. This has been a long difficult period of consultations and it sounds like a scratch record, if you like, young people might not know what is a record. The point is this is something that the government would never ever have wanted to do. This has come about because we have absolutely no other option at this time and as I keep saying our objective is to keep this period of sacrifice to as short a time as possible and at the end of the day we presented to them what we felt was our best final offer in terms of some compensation as well as addressing mutually shared and agreed upon concerns that they had about governance and other issues. They responded to that in a manner I really describe as unprofessional and in my view very political. We are going to continue to work with them, with the unions across the table, the joint unions in good faith. If there are any other issues that we can work on together to better assist the public service union, the teachers union, then we are prepared to do that."
