The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

AFTER being recognised as the bargaining agent for Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute, the Union of Tertiary Educators of The Bahamas is looking forward to soon signing an industrial agreement with the institution.

UTEB President Daniel Thompson said this brings an end to an 18-month battle to be recognised as the bargaining agent for BTVI staff.

“We got the certificate of determination and of recognition,” Mr Thompson said. “This is what we have been fighting for for the past 18 months. Now the real battle begins. The system is what we battle.

“. . .So now begin to focus on the rough road ahead in terms of receiving cooperation from BTVI. We are hoping that they are able to be very cooperative and that we can sit down as educators and thrash out our differences in the boardroom.

“We are hoping that we don’t have to go to file a dispute, but unfortunately that sometimes happens. This is historic for UTEB. This is the first time that UTEB has gone out of the University of The Bahamas. The advisors are excited and elated because it is historic. We will now transition our members from Egypt to the Red Sea and on to the promised land by God’s grace.”

The UTEB president said while they wait to sign off on an agreement, the union must be involved in issues relating to employment at BTVI.

“The certificate is dated June 28, 2021,” he said. “That date is very significant as it’s now our official time of recognition. Anything they did from that period on, must involve UTEB. While we are negotiating our industrial agreement, they (BTVI) must involve UTEB in issues relating to conditions of employment.

“I met with my members this morning to reiterate what the implications of the certificate of determination are. I will now draft a letter to send to the BTVI inviting them to dialogue with us in our new status. The semester opens in a few weeks and so we need to open dialogue with them, ASAP.

“Now we have the power to file industrial disputes and take industrial action. We have to now negotiate and agree on an industrial agreement. That negotiation process will probably last about six to seven months. We have to first get them to the table. We have been working on a drafted industrial agreement. It’s not completed yet. We can give them a proposal. It’s a back-and-forth process and it can last a couple months.”

Mr Thompson said his union is looking to address issues such as staff being placed on short-term contracts.

“They try to put all their faculty on a lot of short-term contracts,” he said. “Management can have three- and four-year contracts, but faculty has to be on annual contracts. All of that we want to change. That is an educational institution and the educators are less secure than the administrator.

“That is unfair. It’s the faculty that should have tenure and security. The faculty should have permanency, while the administrators have contracts of four years or so to come and go. That is what an educational institution does.”