Ms. Jennifer Isaacs Dotson

UTEB President Jennifer Dotson said."the college management continues to manipulate, misinterpret, misapply and disregard the industrial agreement that is enforced."

Ms. Dotson said when the union and COB's management signed the current industrial agreement they agreed at that time that within 120 days they would meet to discuss a number of unresolved matters, including promotions.

"Currently, there are many contentious issues, but perhaps leading these is the issue of promotions, for which there has been no exercise at the college for six years," she said.

"Most of the matters concerning promotions had already been agreed upon at the time we signed the industrial agreement.

All that remained was to agree on the composition of the promotions board and the process to be followed."

Ms. Dotson claimed that negotiations for promotions began March 2007.However, she said there were remaining issues.

"A negotiating team was mutually agreed upon by UTEB and management and after 10 months of discussions, an agreement was reached earlier this month," she said.

"However, upon completion and agreement by both sides, the union was advised of certain changes through the receipt of a memorandum of understanding from the president, secretary general and the human resource committee of council, comprising Mr. T. Baswell Donaldson and Mrs. Judith Whitehead, which contained items that the union had either discussed with management or had agreed that these items would not apply."

Ms. Dotson said one of the issues that needs to be addressed is the clarification of the process to be elevated to the rank of professor.

The union president also claimed that some staff and faculty were terminated without just cause.

"Faculty at the college continue to be let go without just cause, some being offered severance packages just to get rid of them," she said.

"In the meantime, Bahamians with master's degrees are being denied employment as the search for faculty with PhDs outweighs the national imperative and fulfills the need for PhD quotas."

Ms. Dotson said another area of concern is the working conditions of faculty members of the research department.

"The faculty members in research have been subjected to adverse working conditions and uncertainty about their career path," she claimed.
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Ms. Dotson said the union is seeking the assistance of the government to resolve the various problems.

"Faculty wants the process to begin and all this is doing is stalling it," she said.

Jennifer Isaacs Dotson, the Head of the Union of Tertiary Educators of The Bahamas, is having none of it.
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After reading last week's ‘CORRECTION FROM PAT RAHMING', I realized that the one thing I have not seen written about, anywhere, is the possible personal bias of the UTEB President Jennifer Isaacs Dotson.
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Is it at all possible that Jennifer Isaacs Dotson has a personal problem with her brother-in-law's ex-wife coming to work at COB?

Yesterday, UTEB president Jennifer Dotson told The Bahama Journal that the Council had "ulterior motives," claiming that under Ms. Hodder's presidency, Bishop's University in Canada had one of the "biggest strikes" in its history.

Ms. Dotson said the union would not back down from its position, that faculty and students should be more involved in important decisions at the college, and have voted unanimously not to send a representative with a COB delegation that is reportedly travelling to Montreal in a move to have Ms. Hodder reconsider her withdrawal.

"We are not fighting against the Council's decision, the Council has a right to make a decision.We have a right to protest and we will let the public know that the Council has an ulterior motive for bringing [Ms.Hodder] in," said Ms. Dotson.

President of The Union of Tertiary Educators in The Bahamas (UTEB) , Jennifer Issacs-Dotson, expressed that the last faculty and staff industrial agreement ended in 2003.

"When Drs Rhonda Chapman-Johnson and Pandora Johnson applied, they did not have the opportunity to be introduced to us," said Jennifer Issacs-Dotson, president of the Union of Tertiary Educators of The Bahamas.

Union president Jennifer Dotson disclosed to the Guardian yesterday that the dispute was filed on Friday with the Department of Labour because the college Council is refusing to sign an industrial agreement which has been in the works for the past three years.

"We have been in negotiations for a new industrial agreement with the college since 2003 and we have reached to the point where as far as we knew we had agreed on all the clauses.We finished cleaning up the document, dotting the I's and crossing the T's, they are now saying that they are not prepared to sign the industrial agreement," Mrs Dotson said.

"The reason I guess is that they may have problems with some of the things in the agreement, particularly based on the fact that they feel that some of the things are significant to our moving to university status, and that if we put off going to university status then they don't need to sign the industrial agreement."

It is understood that items on the document have already been agreed to and initialled by union members and the college negotiating team.Now sources are pointing the finger at the College Council.

"It is very disappointing to hear that they are not prepared to sign the document you have worked on for the last three years," Mrs Dotson said.