And Martinez along with the presidents of the CWU, the BNTU, and the PSU met today with representatives from The International Labor Organization. The ILO was unable to travel much in the last two years of the pandemic, but the director from the office in Port of Spain, whose jurisdiction includes Belize, is currently in the country to meet with employers, employees and the government to discuss the current labor issues. And NTUCB president, Luke Martinez, says that they've long been pressuring the ILO to visit and were more than prepared for their arrival:
Luke Martinez - President, NTUCB
"For too long the NTUCB and the labor movement, not only in Belie but in the Caribbean, has been viewed, in my view, as symbolic. Since I became president of the NTUCB I have said that it is important for us to get in contact with bodies such as ILO, ITUC, CCL, our international affiliates so that we could internationalize what NTUCB is doing, what NTUCB is about and of course the struggles of the labor movement in Belize. When we got the invitation about two weeks ago, of course this is after us being persistent with these bodies, in fact we went as far to tell ILO that we are prepared to act as Mohamed that if the mountain cannot go to Mohamed, Mohamed will go to the mountain so the NTUCB was prepared to do what we need to do to internationalize our issue. And of course it obviously reach the desk of the director of ILO so when we received the invitation, I said that this is a perfect opportunity for us to put something together, to present to eh ILO which would represent our struggles and our strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, in what we do and that is what we were doing this morning. Of course they were glad to know that the NTUCB put together a presentation, they said in other jurisdiction, there wasn't a presentation, so we're clear in what our threats are, what are some of the weaknesses and of course we bluntly called out the ILO in terms of them forgetting about Belize, forgetting about the NTUCB, the labor movement in Belize. So we put that to them directly. This is a very historic moment for the NTUCB because there have been other visits, I think the last one was in 2019 and this level of conversation did not happen."
And the Caribbean's ILO director, Dennis Zulu, spoke about the issues that were highlighted in the meeting:
Dennis Zulu - Director, ILO for the Caribbean
"So what I'm doing at the moment is basically visiting the member states and during my visit I'm meeting with organizations such as TUC, I'm seeing employers organizations such as the Chambers earlier today but also seeing the governments. It's really both a courtesy visit but really to just get acquainted with some of the issues of our constituents as you know the ILO is the only UN agency that comprises of three partners, government, workers organizations, and employers, so I'm here really to dialogue with them and meet them in person since now we travelling's a bit easier but also to get an appreciation of what sort of labor market issues there are in Belize but also try and see how we can support our constituents in this country."
Courtney Menzies
"So is there any particular issue that was spoken about in the meeting that stood out to you?"
Dennis Zulu
"Well, I think one of the things with having discussed this with both the employers and employees and I believe the government has put this forward to look into the labor laws in this country. Obviously, it's been a while I believe that labor laws have been reviewed but it's also an opportunity to support Belize to update its labor laws, the labor market changes rapidly these days, there are issues that have come out of COVID for instance, remote working, how do we cover workers working from home in terms of occupational health and safety, what are the rights of workers working form home, things like that, so the labor laws really have to be looked at and I'm delighted to hear from both the employers and the workers and government that there is work going towards this."
When asked about the most pressing union issue currently - the lawsuit between Port of Belize and the stevedores - Zulu said that he hadn't been briefed on it as yet.
