Thirty-two managers at the College of The Bahamas (COB) will give the government until the end of the month to negotiate a new industrial agreement with them.
The last agreement the middle managers had with the government expired in 2008.
President of the Public Managers Union (PMU) Winston Moss told the Bahama Journal on Friday that negotiations for a new contract began in early 2009.
“The PMU represents managers at the National Insurance Board (NIB), Bahamasair and the College of The Bahamas. I spoke with the former Prime Minister [Hubert Ingraham] and asked him to deal with all three entities together because the meats of the agreements were all completed. Just the financial part of it needed some alterations.”
Mr. Moss said the former prime minister refused and referred him to the respective ministers.
“Since the new administration came into power after the election last year I went through the Minister of Labour Shane Gibson and we started to talk through the agreement,” he said.
“Since the country is dealing with a poor financial situation we decided to agree to something small. We were able to sign off on something for Bahamasair just several months ago and I asked the minister to speak to the Minister of Education [Jerome Fitzgerald] for these managers at COB.”
Mr. Moss explained that he did a spreadsheet about the costing for the agreement of the union’s proposed contract and noted that it would cost the government less than $100,000.
“I have been communicating with Mr. Gibson and the new chairman, Alfred Sears,” the PMU president said.
“We were trying to get this matter resolved before Christmas but that didn’t work out. The minister told us it would be on Cabinet’s agenda on January 8 but that was not able to happen and then we were told that it was supposed to happen on Tuesday last week but was told that the minister of education was out of the country at the time. Basically, we are hoping to have it resolved by the end of the month.”
He said Mr. Gibson has been instrumental in helping the union with the matter.
“The middle managers at COB are very mature people,” Mr. Moss said.
“They understand the financial state of this country which is why we have been reluctant to do anything as far as industrial action is concerned. We don’t want to be unreasonable.”
Some 350 non-faculty staff workers of the College of the Bahamas (COB) have been agitating for a new industrial agreement since their last contract expired in 2009.
For the past few weeks, in apparent protest of the delays for a new industrial agreement, several of the non-faculty members called in sick.
In a statement released by COB earlier this month, the college explained the present situation.
“On Wednesday, January 9, 2013, some non-faculty staff did not report for duty, indicating that they were ill,” the statement said.
“Today, some employees remain on sick leave. College policy allows each member of staff to take two consecutive sick days without being required to produce a valid certificate from a physician.”
COB stressed the sick-out did not affect college operations.
