Two days after protesting in front of the Port of Belize, water front workers who are worried about losing their jobs were back on the picket line today.
The workers are concerned because last week the now privately owned Port of Belize advertised vacancies for the jobs they currently do. Yesterday the Port of Belize said it has the "ok" from GOB to go ahead with the plan to hire stevedores directly, bypassing the Christian Worker's Union as an agent.
It was the stevedores turn to respond today and they took their answer to the door mouth of Port owner Luke Espat. Keith Swift reports.
Keith SwiftReporting,
Broken in numbers but still strong in resolve, about 30 disgruntled stevedores took their message from the waterfront to the front of Luke Espat’s office this morning. Espat wasn’t there to receive the message personally, but they didn’t care, they carried placards and chanted their pleas to anyone who would listen.
Wayne Cattouse, Stevedore
“I am out here picketing for my job. And this is the only job I have to raise my family off of. The only job I know about is waterfront work. If someone is trying to take bread out of my mouth and give someone else it…that is what this man is trying to do with us. This man is trying to bring in aliens on us. We won’t have any more work. We won’t have anymore work. We will be out of work and then the only that will be left for us to do is to start to jack people and those things. This is serious. This is a serious thing they are doing.”
KS: Some people would say why don’t you just apply for the job that they advertised. Why won’t you do that?
George Reneau, Stevedore
“Because we know what we are working for right now. When we go and apply we don’t know what we will be working for.”
Wayne Cattouse,
“Why would we apply for the job when we already have a job? We already have a job. If we apply for that job then the money [benefits and bonus] that they were supposed to give us, we won’t get. So why would you apply for a job when you already have a job?”
KS: So you won’t apply?
Wayne Cattouse,
“I won’t apply for any job. My union says not to do it and I will follow my union.”
And today they were following union bosses James McFoy and Antonio Gonzales who both say they will continue with their offensive until the Port of Belize or the Prime Minister returns to the bargaining table.
James McFoy, CWU
“They refuse to speak to us. As we explained they refuse to speak to the association and if no talking is going then that means it is a dictatorial behavior. The man is behaving like a dictator and we cannot afford that. We sent a proposal and a counter-proposal agreement to him and to the Port of Belize and we have not received a reply up to today. So we don’t know what will be the outcome. We hope the outcome will not be nasty but we will stick to our guns.”
Antonio Gonzales, CWU President
“This is the bread and butter of people of workers. We the union have to defend it by any means necessary. By any means necessary we will defend this position and whether it’s the Prime Minister or whether it’s the government or whosoever we will continue in this direction regardless of what. If this is a political decision that has to be made, put some pressure. The government and the Prime Minister needs to put some pressure on Mr. Luke Espat. But this has to discontinue and we have to reach some kind of amicable settlement among all parties concerned.”
But for that to happen, they would at least have to acknowledge their concerns. Today again the only acknowledgment came from the police.
The union had planned to picket the Prime Minister's office but he was out of town. CWU President Antonio Gonzales says his union is still waiting to get a meeting with the Prime Minister. We note that while they are protesting, the stevedores are still working for the Port of Belize. Their future after November 5th though, is uncertain.