SOME temporary staffers of New Amsterdam Technical Institute (NATI) who, together, have accumulated 118 years service, are calling on the School Boards Secretariat to make them permanent, so they can receive benefits ranging from pension to paid vacation.

Currently on a sit-out, which started last week Tuesday, they are a senior clerk, two technicians, a librarian, a typist clerk, a storekeeper and two charwomen.

They told the media that, last May 5, following a similar exercise, they met with NATI Board Chairman Mr. David Armogan who asked that they suspend their protest action for a week and an answer to their issue will be forthcoming.

However, the group lamented that period has long expired and they have received no word on the promise.

Armogan, when contacted by the Guyana Chronicle, said the matter is entirely out of his hands and deferred to Mr. Vibert Hart, Chairman of the School Boards Secretariat (SBS), in Georgetown.

But telephone calls to the Woolford Avenue office failed to reach Hart.

One of the protesters, Judy Benjamin said she commenced working at NATI as an office assistant, on February 9, 1993 and has since acted as a general clerk, accounts clerk and senior clerk while still receiving the salary for the first job.

Benjamin said her positions were never confirmed although they were vacant when she assumed them.

She and the others said the NATI Board was appointed in 2006 and, subsequently, advertised vacancies.

They claimed that, in 2007, those employed as a result of those advertisements were given permanent appointments but not their group.

The complainants concluded that it appears as they are not wanted because other persons were hired instead of them.

They said, in 2008, they wrote to the then Board Chairman, Mr. A. Ally and he prepared a broadsheet of those affected and forwarded it to the SBS but without response up to now.

Following the installation of a new board, in April this year, under the chairmanship of Armogan, they said a letter was sent to Minister of Education, Mr. Shaik Baksh and copied to President Bharrat Jagdeo but that, too, has not yielded results.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education Personnel Division requested personal information on the disgruntled staff and was given but to no avail, either.