The leadership of the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT) appears to be on the warpath. Yesterday the teachers held a vote to decide if they should officially have a strike vote. And according to BUT President Belinda Wilson, hundreds of teachers agreed to hold a strike vote.

"We're trying our best for it to not go this far, but sometimes like my parents say, when you can't hear, you'll feel," she told reporters at BUT headquarters on Bethel Avenue.

"If the majority of the members say strike, then we're going to hit the streets."

Wilson said the date for the strike vote will be determined by next week.

The BUT has communicated to the International Labour Organization (ILO) on denial of access to school campuses for the union by the Ministry of Education and health and safety concerns at Stephen Dillet and Uriah McPhee primary schools, according to Wilson. Those are just some of the concerns the BUT says it has with the Ministry of Education.

These concerns, however, are not serious enough to justify a strike. The Ministry of Education has spent over $700,000 on repairs to the two schools in question.

The government has paid the teachers some of the money they are owed and promised to pay the rest. And on the issue of access to school campuses, the ministry has said the BUT will only be allowed on campuses during afterschool hours, or in the case of an emergency.

If there is a point of contention on this issue, certainly there can be discussions or a mediated agreement. Strikes by labor should be reserved for serious breaches by employers.

Those in the BUT who are pushing for a strike over these matters are acting outside of reason. When Bahamians think about public education, they want to know how standards will be improved. They want to know that the ministry and the teachers are fully committed to doing all they can to better the education offered to the majority of our children.

Our teachers should be committed to this objective and should not take the most extreme action for matters that do not rise to the level where such action is necessary. Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald told The Nassau Guardian on Sunday that the union wants to threaten and bully the government to get its own way instead of resolving disputes through the right process.

"I think it's unfortunate, and I think it's unnecessary," he said. "In many cases, it's illogical as well because it really has nothing to do with pay or benefits or rights of teachers.

"The issues which they are raising really don't impact [the] members. Issues which did involve the teachers, I think we have addressed to a great extent." We do not stand in the minister's corner on this issue. We simply think teachers should focus on educating our children.

The leadership of the BUT needs to calm down. The minister also needs to seek a middle way to ensure that these matters are resolved with dialogue rather than further confrontation.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian