State of the teachers address

Correspondent | Monday August 17, 2015 13:02

Of late we see a ministry which does not have a single regard for trade unions, we see a ministry which does not consider relevant and necessary to consult with trade unions, we see a ministry  which boast of enforcing punitive directives on teachers. We see a ministry with intensions to destroy all initiatives we had put in place in our relationship building process with the  out gone Minister. I am obliged and committed as the leader of this mighty progressive union to force this stubborn ministry understand that we exist as a major partner in education of our beloved country and we have a major role to play in the educational development of this country.

We have a recognition agreement with the employer. We are not demanding favours in this regard. It’s a binding agreement and needs to be respected by all. I need to reiterate that transformation of our country’s education is not solely the responsibility of the ministry. Trade unions are a must participate group in this process. I therefore challenge all BTU structures to make an impact at their level of operations.

Regional Offices and Sub-Regional Offices should feel your presence all the time and should not undermine you. You should demand to sit in every committee which decides on the fate of our members.

 

Remember: nothing for us without us.

For this relationship to blossom and be functional it is us who are supposed to mark our space and convince the regional administration that we are there.

We also need to demonstrate our potential and capability in dealing with issues that concerns our members. We need to frequent their offices and enquire on a number of issues that require our attention and advice. This relationship should not only be a must at national level. We all need to stand up for this right and liberate our members.

 

Organisation

The Union is experiencing a normal to moderate growth in terms of membership numerical strength. We have so far organised more than 18000 teachers out of the anticipated 26000 in the whole teaching force. It is indeed a good performance by yourselves and our business wing for effective recruitment strategies you implored to attract such a large number.

I therefore challenge you to consider opening membership to fairly compete with fellow public sector unions who have already opened membership lest we get swallowed in the narrow corner of teaching if we cant embrace other employees in the education sector.

The other shortfall that we need to acknowledge and seriously work on improving in as far as recruitment is concerned is the lack of aggression and zeal to penetrate into private schools across all sectors. The most ignored area being private day care centres or schools. I therefore challenge all Vice Regional Organisers-Pre-Primary to up their game in respect to recruitment endeavours.

Organising , as is core in the existence of any labour movement, needs to be well-coordinated and supported at all leadership structures of our union. Effective organising does not only bring numbers but also empower members and get them informed about their bread and butter issues timeously. It is against this background that I humbly appeal to all of you comrades to embark on intensive empowerment initiatives at regional and site levels.

 

Finances

We also continue to do well financially though we are unable to support all planned activities due to pressing emerging issues that always come with heavy financial implications, hence interfering with the budget. An example of that are cases against government whereby at times reputable attorneys and advocates are engaged. However I’m confident that my secretariat and treasury departments continue to uphold to the laid financial regulations and can timely respond to must do activities like training, financing membership cases which to me forms a core mandate of trade union of advocacy and protection. I’m also proud to announce that our  Finance Committee has been appointed and as per its composition is headed by the National Treasurer and deputised by the Deputy President.

The Committee has been involved in the budgetary process. I therefore advice all of you that we will continuously trade with our finances carefully given continuous battles with the employer in courts that attract huge  funds. It is therefore worth noting that meet9ings of regional structures should be properly planned to allow smooth funding as it has been the case for the past two years which saw us complying well with the registrar’s standards. We therefore cannot regress to association operational modalities. It has been difficult but we made it. Congratulations to the whole team. It is our absolute priority to make our structures functional as we will intensify training to give people the requisite skills to survive against the ever-changing employment policies and multiple directives aimed at scarring you comrades. We therefore count on your strong support against those whose daily mission is to confuse us. We also need to be vigilant and act swiftly against the employer who doesn’t want to bargain with us but instead want us to be beggars.

 

Industrial Relations

Industrial relations continue to get worse by the day at work places. This is confirmed by the high number of disciplinary cases and disputes registered with this office. We expect the numbers to increase especially with a huge number of people coming back to service after a lengthy training and operating under the public service act for the first time and we need to speedily induct them on the public service act and its regulations. We also continue to experience attempts by the government to fix laws in such a manner that workers lose fundamental rights such as the right to strike. This move has evil intentions, as employees shall be left with no tool to force the employer to listen to their demands.

It will be extremely suicidal to allow all services to be rendered essential just to fix employees to never struggle for what is theirs. We therefore need to collectively fight this operation to liberate workers and our country from this ruthless plans of enforcing these draconian laws.

We will continue to act jointly with other unions and both federations (BOFEPUSU and BFTU) to pile pressure on the employers. We have since engaged other stakeholders to support our cause; we have engaged opposition caucus, BDP labour Committee. We are yet to engage BOCCIM, address General Assembly, among others. The main aim being to sensitise them on the intended bill of essesntialising the teaching services, hence our appeal to them to shoot down the bill.

 

*Edited for length