Teachers are waiting for a pay increase which was promised to them in March.

And Bermuda Union of Teachers president Michael Charles told The Royal Gazette the group, representing some 600 public school teachers, plans to fire off a letter to Education Permanent Secretary Marion Robinson requesting that she look into the "fiasco''.

Meanwhile Education Minister Jerome Dill told The Royal Gazette : "There has been absolutely no attempt to deprive anyone of the increase which was negotiated in good faith.

"The teachers may rest assured that they will get their increases in full certainly by the end of May.'' After arbitrators stepped in two months ago to resolve a six-month contract dispute, it was agreed that teachers' salary and honoraria -- the fee for participating in extra-curricular activities -- would be increased by three percent. The amount of leave for union business was also increased from 21 to 25 days. And teachers were told they would have two days in September, prior to the first day of classes, to prepare their classrooms and attend meetings or workshops arranged by principals.

They also gained three days of personal leave during the month of September, prior to the beginning of classes, to accompany their children to school abroad.

The agreement was backdated to September last year since teachers had been working without a contract since August 31, 1997.

But Mr. Charles noted that teachers were still waiting for the increased salary and their patience was wearing thin.

"We were expecting to at least see the three-percent increase by now, even if we did not get the retroactive pay right away'' he said. "When we called the Accountant General's office, they said they only got the information (about the increase) from the Education Ministry on April 28.

"The Ministry, however, said they sent it off to the Accountant General's office on March 25, shortly after the agreement was reached.'' It was not clear who was at fault, Mr. Charles added.

But he said such an incident underscored the "shoddy type of treatment teachers get''.

The Education Ministry showed little interest in working out an agreement with teachers from the start, Mr. Charles charged.

"They started (negotiations) off with about five people and eventually it boiled down to Mr. (Raymond) Latter (the Education Department's human resource manager).'' He also noted that teachers had made little progress since May last year when the negotiations began.

This latest incident was another example of the disrespect shown by the Ministry to teachers, Mr. Charles said.

"I think everybody (civil servants) who has an agreement have their increase,'' he added. "Yet they say we should be patient. But teachers have been patient enough.

"There's always talk about the importance of teachers. But again teachers are not being shown how important they are.'' But Mr. Dill responded that the increases affected more than 600 teachers at various levels of pay and some of them might involve teachers actually climbing up a level in the pay scale.

"We are doing our due diligence now so that we are sure that our calculations are correct. We do not want to be giving increases that are less than they should be. We want to make sure the job is done correctly.''