It's been four weeks of press conferences, protests, and picketing but the Belize Communication Workers for Justice have finally gotten a breakthrough - BTL will pay their severance - and not in a payment plan - they will be paying in a lump sum. And they won't just be paying those who are members of the group, but 564 former employees.
The BCWJ sat down with members of the BTL board this afternoon in a 3 hour long meeting. According to their rep, Emily Turner, the meeting was cordial but it came after long days in the sun and rain and without the help of the union they helped to create.
After the meeting, we spoke with Turner and she explained the next steps:
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep
"The meeting was very fruitful, like we had said earlier, even though last week, we were at each other's throat, today was the atmosphere, it was collaborative, genuine, I think both sides were very genuine with each other and we really want to close this and I think that's the way, we had several side bars that we had to take with different positions we found ourselves in and then we came back and I think that we managed to move from wherever we were to what we have presented right now, which is basically that BTL has agreed to pay the severance."
"We have agreed that in terms of the severance they will pay it in a lump sum. BTL has proposed in the meeting that the interest for them would be starting from the CCJ ruling up to now and that's where we have asked them to go back with that because that's not something equitable that we can take back to our groups."
Reporter
"Can you talked to us about ensuring that no one is left out."
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep
"Okay, so let me and that's one of the things that BTL came with and we want to applaud them for that. They have included all the employees, the number they gave us is 564, even people that are not included in our group that we're representing will be paid. So they have already looked at the severance amount for those people so we will, obviously we are more, we will only have the data for the people that are working with our group but BTL has committed that even the people that are not part of any group they will be reaching out to those people to get this, make this payment to them because they want to settle this, they want to settle it with all the employees that then worked at BTL within the years, I mean from 1994 up to 2025."
Reporter
"While today is a day of celebration, no doubt victorious, it must be bittersweet that you all went the distance without the union that you all built."
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep
"Yes, that's that's I said it to them and I'll say it again It is a sad day. We came to this point and they'd never join us in walking on that pavement and standing up for the rights of BTL employees because we all consider ourselves BTL employees It would not look good for them It really would not look good for them and we have we are there today and we have to say or pat our backs and say we were able to accomplish this without them. I guess that's why BCWU is known in its history to be strong But it was because of us and and we can say that because now we have shown it the BCWU that Belize saw that Belize knew was us."
"It's not what is there today."
BTL will be responding to the group by Thursday, after which they will go back to their members. They are expected to meet with the board again sometime in the middle of next week. The BCWJ is hoping to close discussions within the next two weeks.
It is estimated that the total package of payouts could cost BTL upwards of 20 million dollars.
