By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

THE government yesterday signed a five-year industrial agreement with the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) as Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald denied that recent disputes between union executives and embattled President Belinda Wilson hampered the process.

Mr Fitzgerald, along with BUT executives, yesterday signed an industrial agreement spanning the period 2013 to 2018. According to BUT officials, the agreement seeks to improve the overall working conditions for teachers and allows for increases in benefits, emoluments and salaries.

According to Mr Fitzgerald, the Ministry of Finance has advised that payments to teachers will be issued as early as next month upon yesterday’s signing. He said a further payment would be made in September.

He said by the end of June the government also intends to pay approximately 100 teachers $1m in back pay.

In February, The Tribune reported that the Ministry of Education had suspended negotiations with the BUT for a bargaining agreement because of an expected court fight between Ms Wilson and members of the BUT’s executive committee.

In a statement, the ministry said it had taken note of the recent escalation of disputes in the union and that fact that it had become a legal issue. However, at the time it said the BUT’s executive team and ministry officials had made “significant strides and have concluded the substantive part of the bargaining agreement”.

Yesterday, Mr Fitzgerald admitted to one “little hiccup” during the process but said the signing was an “accomplishment of a formidable task, which is to ensure that all stakeholders are satisfied, that the bargaining agreement reflects the needs of its members”.

“At the end of the day with regard to Ms Wilson, I said before that the key concern for everybody was to get this agreement done and the executives in the BUT are bigger than any one person,” he said. “We have over 4,000 teachers involved and so that was really the mindset.

“The show doesn’t stop and we had a little hiccup but that was only for a couple of weeks and we moved past that and we’re here today. I am extremely pleased and I encouraged all those involved to try and get it finished before the school year because I was mindful, as everybody else was mindful, that if we could make a payment to the teachers before the summer that would be good.”

Zane Lightbourne, the BUT vice president, expressed his delight in finally concluding the matter.

“Teaching is a profession of professions, thus making all other professions possible,” he said. “We applaud the government in their quest for the vision that they share and the BUT for the overall status improvement. Success is a journey, and I think that this is definitely a step in the direction.”

Ms Wilson was suspended by the union last year for six months but later had that suspension lifted. She was suspended again in late March.