The stalemate at the Port of Belize Limited finally ended today - after eight days of strike action, the stevedores voted to return to work.
And the CWU says it pulled back because it is satisfied with the ruling of the Essential services Arbitration Tribunal on Thursday. As we told you yesterday, that Tribunal directed The Port of Belize to confirm the primary stevedores as regular stevedores; to promote the 28 secondary substitutes to primary substitutes and invite them to participate in PBL's insurance scheme; to pay their share of contributions to the retirement savings for these 28 stevedores from the 13th of July - which was when the dispute was first brought to the attention of the minister; and, finally, PBL must commence negotiations for payment under the Redundancy Package as agreed between the parties on March 6th.
The CWU, in their release, is appealing to the Receivership Management at PBL to comply with the ruling and engage with them on the outstanding matters.
The release also says that they would meet with GOB representatives today about the government's offer to their members. They don't say what that offer is but we assume it is monetary compensation for the, quote, "issues and hardships caused to the stevedores by the Port's privatization."
The CWU says they are willing to further negotiate issues with the government that they feel need to be remedied to ensure that the industrial relationship at the Port is stabilized.
Notably, the release does not mention their views on PBL's proposed $1,000,000 lawsuit against them. We reported yesterday that the company is threatening to sue the CWU for loss of earnings because of, what they call, an illegal strike.
We reached out to Andy Lane, PBL's CEO, for comment today but he declined, saying "The situation right now is delicate and sensitive to say the least. We are healing, and working, next week is the earliest that I would wish to be making public statements."
