The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE Union of Tertiary Educators of The Bahamas expects to hold a mass demonstration today, incensed by a University of The Bahamas proposal to increase salaries by a meagre 82 cents per day.

According to UTEB president Daniel Thompson, members are “insulted” and view the proposal that equates to about $300 per year as a “slap in the face”, especially since it mainly applies to educators with master’s and doctoral degrees.

UTEB is also angered by UB’s lack of urgency to finalise an industrial agreement that expired in 2017.

“Disheartened” by the situation, Mr Thompson said the union has no choice but to walk out of UB’s classrooms today to make their complaints public. He said UTEB will be backed by other unions when it assembles at UB’s main waterfall entrance at 2pm.

The salary scale for assistant professors at UB is between $37,660 and $63,310 with a master’s degree, according to salary scales in UTEB’s expired industrial agreement.

The scale for assistant professors with doctoral degrees ranges from $42,160 to $71,410.

Most UB educators,The Tribune was told yesterday, fall within these categories.

“Obviously the university cannot be serious with such an offer,” Mr Thompson said. “Notwithstanding we understand that we live in a post (Hurricane) Dorian era but at the same time the university in a few weeks is going to be bringing in an executive that will cost the university between $200,000 to $300,000 to bring in this one executive and when you juxtapose that with what they are offering faculty, the university is grappling with $150,000 overspend to satisfy their decision so it’s a matter of priority.”

Mr Thompson added: “The union has been very mindful to work hand and hand with the university to build goodwill but notwithstanding that UB has turned around and slapped us in the face and says 82 cents a day is all that we deserve.

“These are professors with PhD and master’s degrees and they only deserve 82 cents per day? They have got to be able to do better than that.”

Regarding the expired industrial agreement, Mr Thompson said educators feel their jobs are in limbo, holding no certainty.

“If the university does not sign off on this industrial agreement, it means that we are all handicapped. It means the position of the faculty is unsecured because we are working without any terms of employment without an industrial agreement.

“Next week we will be celebrating our third anniversary as a university and yet there is no formal relationship being signed off with faculty.”

“Our contract and our last agreement was from 2012 to 2017. So we are now in the third year now of living without an industrial agreement,” the union leader said.

“Our argument is that the university has been in existence as a university since the passage of the UB Act in 2016. Over 1,000 days have passed without concluding an agreement. Hence there has been no end in sight.

“There are a lot of issues that have come about as a result of the University of the Bahamas Act 2016 and among them is the creation of what we refer to as an academic senate, which is supposed to be a shared governance of the institution.

“Now critical to the academic senate is our union, UTEB, because much of the functions that UTEB performed, many of the activities have been consumed by the academic senate.

“So one would think that because of the Act the university would see it as a priority to conclude the industrial agreement so that we could begin to work out the relationship between the academic senate and the union.”

Last November, UTEB staged a protest at UB’s entrance over several failed attempts to negotiate the industrial agreement.

Attempts to reach a representative of the university were unsuccessful up to press time.