Growing up

Dharmendra Kumar, Suva

Are the union representatives or the respective political parties providing food for the striking (ATS) workers’ families?

Sometimes you have to swallow your pride and accept that you are wrong. Its not giving up, its called growing up.

Bias

Amenatave Yaconisau, Delainavesi, Lami

I don’t have political patronage, but the influence on the values and attitudes of the people of this country by a certain media outlet is enormous.

I thought that parental influence was great, but this outlet is influencing popular support by intervening on public opinion. Letters of those they favour are almost printed daily because it camouflages their values. There is probably too much editorial interference or political bias by the owners and publisher. We have common values of stability in this country and that is good because it enhances liberalism and not tyranny and that must be respected.

Testing time for teachers

Christopher Griffin, Perth, WA

If I’ve got this right, newly qualified teachers looking for work will now have to pass a test set up by the Ministry of Education.

One part will judge English competence; another will address the specific work situation. Two questions arise. Assuming teacher training is sound and incompetent students have been weeded out, why is another Government test required? And what is meant by testing for ‘work specific’ situations?

These matters must worry not just new graduates but those who’ve prepared them.

The bigger question is what has motivated this Ministry intervention?

Nadi Post car park

Suresh Chand, Nadi

This is one issue that I would like to bring to the attention of the concerned parties. The condition of Nadi Post Office car park is pathetic. Only a small portion of the heavily used car park remains intact.

How you can check your mail box and safely come out of the car park is well known by those who use it daily. The sad part is that the car park has been in the present state for a long time now, but no one cares.

Despite raising the issue early last year, the year has passed but nothing happened. I urge the authorities concerned to look into it to safeguard the interest of all concerned.

Fiji happiest country

Jonas Bradburgh, Makoi

I’m still curious how do we calculate happiness? The Fiji Times (30/12) reported on the Tebbutt global Research that Fiji is the happiest country in the globe.

I said to myself we must have a lot of pretenders or we just love to suffer in silence. Happy 2018 Fiji !

ATS saga

Savenaca Vakaliwaliwa, Suva

So if the ATS staff who are on strike decide to go back to work, what will happen to all their grievances? From what we have learnt through the dailies, the ATS workers have good reasons to go on strike. The fact that Government owns 51 per cent and staff owns 49 per cent of ATS makes it a Government versus Workers saga.

Why is our PM not involved? He gets things sorted out and done within minutes when he waves his magic wand!

The Workers Union are planning a march in two weeks time through Nadi Town and we all hope that this strike will not drag on that long.

Why is it so hard for the Government or ATS management to do the right thing by paying up what is owed to workers in the past years and admit its plan to sell off the workers 49 per cent shares to an outside source?

This is a Government vs Workers fight and workers represent the people who’s one vote decides which Government runs the nation. My vote will certainly not go in favour of our current Government leaders, if it does not do the right thing in keeping the ATS workers happy as per their original terms and conditions of partnership/ownership shares.