Teachers protest on Bay Street

The Nassau Guardian

Teachers protest on Bay Street

Hundreds of teachers demonstrated outside the House of Assembly yesterday over what the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) called a gamut of unresolved issues.

The protest came even though the government has paid educators $1 million of the $4.5 million that was owed to them and has promised to pay the rest in coming months.

BUT President Belinda Wilson said Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald has failed to address major breaches, namely the union’s inability to access school campuses and post notices on school boards.

Wilson also accused Fitzgerald of failing to treat teachers as professionals.

She renewed her call for the minister to step down, or for Prime Minister Perry Christie to remove him.

At one point the crowd sat down in Rawson Square and chanted “Fitzgerald has to go”.

Fitzgerald has rejected the union's claims of victimization.

Renewing the union’s concerns yesterday, Wilson asked, “If we as union executives are not allowed to even enter the workplace of our members, how is it that we are able to represent them at all properly?

“How are we able to find out what their concerns are? Meetings are not always about grievances or a major concern, but we have to be able to get information to our members.

“It has really been hindering us and it is a major breach of the Industrial Relations Act, the code of industrial practice and the ILO (International Labour Organization) conventions.”

Fitzgerald said he will not compromise on his position to restrict the union from holding meetings on campuses during schools hours.

The minister addressed the issue in the House of Assembly last week.

He said there is nothing in the union’s collective bargaining agreement that gives authorization to BUT to hold meetings on campuses during school hours.

He said the ministry has no issue allowing teachers to come on these campuses after school, or in cases of an emergency during school hours.

Wilson said teachers are prepared to take a strike vote if the outstanding issues are not resolved.

Teachers have remained on work to rule for the past two weeks.

They stopped all after-school activities last week, according to Wilson.

The BUT will make a formal presentation to the ILO sometime today and request a team to visit The Bahamas to mediate, according to Wilson.

It is unclear if, or when, this would happen.

“When you have to report the government to the ILO it causes a level of embarrassment to the country,” she said.

“When The Bahamas goes to Geneva, Switzerland, every year for three weeks, we are there touting how progressive and democratic The Bahamas is, and how we are adhering to the conventions that we ratified and agreed upon.

“For...something as fundamental as the union gaining access onto the school campuses to have meetings with their members, and we are being denied that, that is serious for the ILO.”

Wilson expects to meet with Labour and National Insurance Minister Shane Gibson and Fitzgerald at the Department of Labour next Monday.

However, the union president said Fitzgerald need not come if he maintains the same “posture that he has displayed over the last few weeks”.

“We want to work in harmony with the employer, but we will not sit by and let anyone intimidate or victimize or interfere with the union, or any union member,” she said.

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