Tonight, the industrial situation across Belize has returned to normal.
After calling a halt to its strike on Friday, the Teachers' Union has not indicated that it will re-institute the strike. The Public Service Union today also announced that it has halted its strike, which was declared last Tuesday at midnight.
Today as well, for the first time in three weeks, the shutters were taken down and BTL's entire staff was asked to return to work. According to the company's head of Business Development, Marketing and PR Karen Bevans close to 100% of the company's 450 employees countrywide have returned to work.
And while they have ratcheted down efforts to destabilize the Musa administration, indications are that the trade union congress has not given up and is re-strategizing. And that new strategy may have solely the political personalities of Said Musa and Ralph Fonseca in the crosshairs. 7NEWS has obtained a copy of a draft resolution that is being considered for forwarding to the PUP. Instead of asking for the entire government to resign, as the NTUCB first did in its letter to the Prime Minister two weeks ago, it will now ask only for Investment and Home Affairs Minister Ralph Fonseca and Prime Minister Said Musa to resign. After that they call on the majority in the House to choose a new leader who would choose a Cabinet which would include the social partners.
Thought it bears the unfortunate characteristic of constituting a dramatic shift in position, the strategy seems clearly geared to capitalizing on the belief that there are those within the PUP who would wish to get rid of Musa and Fonseca and it clearly seeks to encourage them by saying that the NTUCB would support such a maneuver and the government formed out of it. It's a strategy that would make for interesting times but again, the resolution is only at the draft stage and to our knowledge has not been fully endorsed by the NTUCB. The NTUCB is meeting at this hour at the BNTU office to make those considerations.
