Monday, November 9, 2009

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UTEB seeking sanction for strike vote By KEVA LIGHTBOURNE ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ kdl@nasguard.com: After months of on-again off-again contractual negotiations between College of The Bahamas management and the Union of Tertiary Educators of The Bahamas (UTEB), a formal request was made yesterday to have the Ministry of Labour sanction a strike vote. UTEB president Jennifer Dotson led a group of about 40 college lecturers from COB's Oakes Field main campus to the Cabinet Office to hand deliver the strike vote letter to Labour Minister Dion Foulkes. A copy of the letter was also delivered to Minister of Education Carl Bethel and another was left for Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, Dotson said. This latest move comes as both sides have reportedly reached an impasse in their contractual talks. Dotson claims that without clear justification COB's bosses have refused to agree to new terms for an industrial agreement for 208 staff members. The last agreement between COB and UTEB expired last year. Negotiations for a new three-year industrial agreement began in February 2009, but the talks have been filled with tension from the beginning and UTEB has continually accused COB of "playing hard ball and not negotiating in good faith". The only clause that has been agreed to deals with union dues. "It's not like we are moving forward with anything or we are getting anything accomplished at the table," said Dotson. She said both sides continue to disagree on salary promotion issues and other financial matters, and the very basic issue of who should qualify as faculty. "Those are going to be the most difficult things that we have discussed, that we can't seem to reach a mutual consensus on. The definition of faculty is definitely something that is really holding up the document. If you look at our expired industrial agreement, faculty is contained in almost every clause of that document," Dotson said. "COB has not really been able to provide us with a very good rationale as to why they want to change the term faculty." The word faculty encompasses instructional faculty and non-instructional faculty, which includes librarians, counselors and researchers, according to Dotson. "COB wishes to change that (title) to administrative personnel and all kinds of other definitions," she said. Dotson said that tenure is also playing a factor in the rift. "COB wishes now to put everyone on contract, including Bahamians, and that is a concern for the union. There is only one COB in The Bahamas. It is not like we have 10 universities and we can choose which university we want to work to," she argued. Dotson claimed that the morale of faculty, staff and students is low at the college "because in reality a lot of things are going on." She pointed to issues related to security and the college's physical surroundings. Up to press time yesterday, it was unclear when Minister Foulkes would answer UTEB's call for a strike vote. COB has said previously it will not comment on negotiations with UTEB. Wednesday November 4, 2009