By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

HUNDREDS of New Providence teachers yesterday voted “yes” to taking the formal step toward going on strike, which could happen as early as next week, Bahamas Union of Teachers President Belinda Wilson said yesterday.  

The teachers were polled at the BUT headquarters building about whether they wanted to go on strike so that the Department of Labour could be notified of their decision and formally meet with them and conduct a strike vote for public record.

Their move towards taking a strike comes amid an ongoing battle between the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) and the government over a number of issue since the start of the new school term in September.

BUT president Belinda Wilson said:  “Teachers overwhelmingly support having the strike vote. We really headed toward a strike now and while it’s sad that it has come to this, as they said when we were growing up, if you can’t hear, you gon’ feel. Even teachers who couldn’t come to the meeting called in or came in earlier and said ‘yes’ to the strike vote.”

As she awaits the results of similar polls from across the Bahamas, she said she would write the Department of Labour last night to inform them of the teachers’ decision.

The Department of Labour, she said, will then have to send a representative to formally conduct a strike vote and certify the teachers’ decision to go on a strike––a process she said that should not take more than seven days.

 After their meeting yesterday, The Tribune spoke to several teachers about why they support a strike. They all wished to remain anonymous for fear of being victimized.

One of them said: “Our issues are not being addressed and they are refusing to meet with our president on our behalf. The union has no access to school campuses, for instance. God forbid anything happens to a teacher and they have no representation.”

“Everybody is on the same wavelength,” another teacher said. “Teachers are ready to have this strike. I know one teacher who has a wife with a heart condition who has to come to Nassau for treatment. He wants to be transferred here to make it easy for his family, but the ministry refuses to let him in even though we have space for him in the schools on the island. I also believe Jerome Fitzgerald and Leslie Miller are using the union to throw up a smokescreen to take attention away from the VAT Bill being tabled.”

A teacher at Stephen Dillet Primary school said: “I’m suffering from bronchitis because of that school. We have a lack of proper ventilation, the air conditioning system is not working, they said the schools were fixed, but they are not.”

Another teacher at Stephen Dillet said: “I does have the flu more than I know what. In the centre I teach in, we have one door, no windows and 150 students. If there is an emergency, God knows what would happen.”

Another teacher said some teachers were reluctant to take a strike because of the “intimidation tactics of the government.”

As for BUT president Ms Wilson, one teacher said: “I support her fully, she fighting for us.”