The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

BELINDA Wilson signed her final industrial agreement as president of the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) yesterday, in the same conference room where she helped negotiate the union’s first agreement 20 years ago.

The five-year deal, which follows more than a year of negotiations and threats of industrial action, raises the maximum teacher salary to $54,000 and entry-level pay to $30,100. It also addresses maternity and paternity leave. Mrs Wilson said the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology had committed to a breastfeeding pilot programme, which she said was important because 85 percent of BUT members are women.

The agreement runs from 2025 to 2030 and is retroactive to July 1, 2025. Teachers will receive lump-sum payments of $700 in the third year and $750 in the fifth year. Either side can return to the negotiating table within three years.

Other benefits include rental disturbance, hardship, special education and geographical posting allowances, as well as a retention bonus based on a trained teacher’s maximum annual salary.

Asked whether the benefits would help keep more teachers in the profession, Mrs Wilson said they could. She said that while teachers remained committed to their jobs, they also needed to earn enough to pay their bills.

Mrs Wilson, who is due to retire on July 5, 2028, said she will not seek re-election, which means she will be gone before the five-year agreement expires in 2030. She was joined by members of her team at the Ministry of Education for the signing.

She said her team had been undergoing professional training in negotiation skills to prepare for her departure, and that she would watch from the sidelines to see the great work they do.

“I want my team to also know too, you have a privilege and an honour to be serving thousands of teachers from Grand Bahama to Inagua,” she said. “They could have chosen anyone else, so don’t take it lightly. It’s service and it’s service above self.”

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Neil Campbell said officials stood behind Bahamian teachers. He said both he and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Science and Technology Chester Cooper had worked as teachers.

“Sometimes when you sit on different sides of the table people remove themselves from who they are, and from whence they came,” Mr Campbell said. “I never got that feeling from our very own minister, who really wanted to deliver on all the promises he would have made.”

The signing ends a dispute that pushed teachers to the brink of industrial action at the start of the school year. Last month, the union placed more than 1,400 members on “industrial action alert” after teachers rejected the government’s financial counterproposal for a sixth time. Members had already voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action.

Days later, Mrs Wilson and BUT members met Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis, Mr Cooper and officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Service at the Office of the Prime Minister, where the outstanding financial matters were settled. Mrs Wilson said afterwards that the union was “elated”.