Opposition Labour Affairs spokesman Michael Dunkley has blasted Education Minister Milton Scott for inflaming the teachers dispute by misunderstanding labour law. The teachers escalated their action in response to a threat of binding arbitration under the Labour Relations Act. However, under that Act both parties must consent to arbitration and it is not binding. Sen. Scott has pointed out that he was not actually present in the negotiations which lasted just five hours before being terminated on Tuesday night. However, he faxed The Royal Gazette a statement within half an hour of the end of the talks. It said: "The Labour Department has indicated that the matter has been referred to binding arbitration.'' He later confidently claimed that this meant the teachers would be back at work on Wednesday only to find nearly 600 of them had embarked on industrial action. Teachers said they were furious about the threat which they say had been planned all along. A statement from the Bermuda Union of Teachers said: "Later it was revealed that the entire evening's activities were an exercise in futility for the Union. It is understood that decisions were made earlier in the afternoon.'' Mr. Dunkley said: "It seems the Minister has, through his aggressive stance, sparked an escalation of the dispute which affected the entire Island without even understanding what he was doing. "He can't force people into arbitration with this Act. "He may have confused it with the Trade Disputes Act which ended the Precision-Somers dispute, but that's no excuse. "The teachers were in communication when the Government took this rigid stance. The teachers must be disappointed about a Labour Government behaving this way.'' Yesterday Sen. Scott refused to comment about the negotiations. Talks on the teaching dispute could start next week, according to BUT president Anthony Wolffe. He said they were still waiting to hear from the Labour Ministry about when and what form the arbitration would take. It is also thought that the negotiators blundered by claiming that the dispute had been referred to binding arbitration. Wednesday's all-out action brought anger from some parents who suddenly had to pick up kids at short notice in the working day. One angry parent fumed: "Often when I take my kids to school I find teachers are turning up after them. "On most nights of the week they don't set homework because they can't be bothered to mark it.'' However, teachers feel misunderstood and were keen to point out that they were not pushing for a 25-hour week. The 25-hour limit was supposed to include teaching hours as well as specified duties which are pre-school duties, recess duty, hallway duty, bus duty after school and lunch duty. The rest of the week under the current agreement is supposed to be set aside for marking and lesson planning.