Like we said earlier, it's the political off-season but the Teachers Union is still kicking up dust. The union held a pre-Christmas press conference today to rail against the Ministry of Education for displacing Excelsior High School teachers; deplorable conditions at Escuela Secondaria Mexico; not receiving promised increments and the Ministry of Education not paying Social Security contributions for some of their teachers. The teachers are hopping mad and they say, if they have to, they will launch industrial action.
Anthony Fuentes, BNTU President
"One of the key problems is the issue at Escuela Secondaria Mexico and the issue of Excelsior, the issue of our Social Security contributions, and of course the increment freeze and so at that officer's seminar the BNTU agreed to host a press conference to inform the general public about these concerns that we have been having both with the Ministry of Education and the Government of Belize. The way for the union is first for us to dialoguer and if we cannot dialogue and come up with solutions to our problems, then as a normal union activity, we will have to resort to industrial actions if we do not get satisfaction after we have dialogued. So I am saying that we need to talk first and if we do not get satisfaction then we resort to industrial action. We will not back off from this issue because, as I said earlier, its not only affecting teachers and public officers, these are issues that are affecting the everyday person."
