And while the union's protests have dominated the news over the past couple months, today we heard from the other side of that negotiating table.
Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca, who's a part of the budget consultation team gave an update to the media about the state of the negotiations.
In a Zoom press conference, he said that for now, the government has provided clarification for some issues that unions had mentioned.
But he didn't mention whether they're waiting for a response, since, as we told you last night, their last offer seemed to be a take-it-or-leave it deal:
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I can update you to say that based on that consultation and that discussion the joint unions ask for clarification of a few issues and yesterday the prime minister again wrote to the unions making certain clarifications as it relates for example the work week was one clarification they requested, the question of having 5 hour of less work week and the prime minister in his letter of clarification pointed out that yes the government was still prepared to accommodate the joint unions and allow for a work week which require 5 hours less work on the part of public officers and teachers, so that was cleared up. They had also asked about the appointment of a member of the NTUCB to the board of the national bank. Again, the letter submitted this morning clarified and said yes, the government agrees to appointing a member of the NTUCB to the national bank. And then there was another issue they raised about whether or not the 4 period that the prime minister had negotiated with the central bank of Belize whether that extended beyond residential mortgages and applied to all mortgages, again that was clarified in our letter today saying yes, that in fact it was not limited to residential mortgages but allied to all mortgages. So that was the latest in terms of our letter of clarification sent out."
And while the unions aren't too happy about the compensation proposed in the letter, Fonseca said that he believes it is fair. This compensation, he explained, depends on the effort the public officers put in to arrive at a targeted surplus annually.
Hon. Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"Very important part of the letter of undertakings is what we describe in that letter as the performance bonus option. We view that as fair and reasonable as a form of compensation and as you know that essentially what that is, very simple terms is that the government has set targets in the budget every year and the government is saying to the unions lets work together, where we over performed on those targets, for example this year the target in the primary budget is a minus 2.9% deficit, that's the target. If we over perform on that for example if we have a 1.9% primary deficit then that 1% over performance will yield something like 35 million dollars and the government is prepared then to make that 35 million dollars available to public officers and teachers who have been affected by the salary cut on a pro-rata basis. That I think is absolutely reasonable, it's fair, it's the best that the government can do at this time. Let's work together to ensure the strong recovery of this economy. Let us put our minds and hearts together to recover this economy and if we do that then the teachers and public officers benefit directly and of course the entire country benefits."
The unions have indicated that their strike continues, and that there is no date to return back to the negotiating table.
