The Tribune

By RIEL MAJOR

THE Bahamas Union of Teachers will present the government with a letter on Monday relating to its new industrial agreement and is calling for the government to respond within seven days, according to president Belinda Wilson.

Mrs Wilson said ministers or persons from the other side has given the wrong information regarding the teacher's industrial agreement.

She said: "I wondered when the negotiations started...the Bahamas Union of Teachers presented an agreement to the government of the commonwealth of the Bahamas through the Minister of Education June 20, 2018 (and) to date I do not have a counter proposal.

"I do not have any information from education as to who are the members of their team and we do not have a counter proposal. However, I promise you they will get a letter by Monday and they’ll be given seven days for us to get to the table because our agreement would have expired from June 30, 2018."

In response to the government refusing to meet, Mrs Wilson said they will file a trade dispute.

"I’m saying it is sickening that we cannot follow the policies or the laws that are presently in place and what is even worse is when you are not communicating…when education or the government does not communicate with you," said Mrs Wilson.

"If you present them with a document nine months ago and if they are having a challenge getting us a counter proposal then write to us formally and say we wrote to you formally. We presented an agreement, a draft proposal to you formally so write to us and say because February 7 was the deadline for them to present their counter proposal to us, but it’s almost April 7.

"If you’re having a challenge just communicate with us...hey we got your document we’re still working on it, however, we need a few more weeks or a few more days. We can understand that and that is how we get into these adversarial issues.”

When asked about her encounter with previous ministers and the current minister, Mrs Wilson said she has no issues with working and communicating with Education Minister Jeffrey Lloyd.

Mrs Wilson said: "Sometimes we communicate sometimes four to five times a day depending on what the matters may be. If a recommendation is given, he seems to be open to it, however, the problem has been that not only this government or this minister.

"The Ministry of Education a lot of times we put the focus on the minster, but you have a permanent secretary you have a director, you have a deputy permanent secretary, you have an undersecretary, you have deputy directors you have assistant directors of education who getting our taxpayers money and not doing their work in an effective manner so a lot of times the technocrats get off the hook because we focus so much on if the president or the minister speaking.

She added: “They don’t need to speak to me, what I need is that when there is a problem concerning and affecting our members it is dealt with in a timely and efficient manner. What I need is if there is money owed to our members…outstanding money, make sure it’s placed in the budget and they are paid.

"What I need is when we give recommendations that make sense based on a policy, they may send to us that is not full proof then sit with us, go through our recommendations. Whatever part of our recommendations you feel can help to improve the policy that you’ve implemented then grab that and let’s work with that.

"My problem is consecutive governments the problem still exists that the technocrats are not leading their areas and not effective and they just continue to stay in the areas, continue to stay in the positions and some instances be promoted."