The City Council intends to fire 26 security workers tomorrow - with 20 of them being re-hired by a new private firm. But their workers' representative, the Christian Workers Union is trying to stop the transition or at least slow it down.
Through public pressure, the Union managed to delay the changeover by a week, but now it's coming right down to the wire. Both sides were called to a mediation session by the Labour commissioner Ivan Roberts this morning at the Labour Office in Belize City. The mayor had to leave early to head for a court appointment - but the media caught him on his way out - and he said what CWU President Audrey Matura Shepherd is asking for is unreasonable:...
Mayor Darrell Bradley
"We will deal with the labour commissioner as much as is required for him to be satisfied that whatever processes that need to be follow we will follow. But for our intents and purposes we have agreed as a council to proceed with this. We made representations to the labour commissioner that we have taken into account the staff members. We have tried to make the blow as soft as possible. I stay up at nights when I have to make these kinds of decisions. We have cooperated with everything that the union has but many of those proposals that they have are very unreasonable and we will not accede to anything that is unreasonable."
"I believe that Mrs. Matura, due respect to her, misunderstands her role and function. Her role and function here is not to tell the city council or an employer whether or not they could make a staff redundant. I saw her on the news and she was talking about numbers and financial records and she show an inability to read a balance sheet."
"I just came out of a meeting and she wants to go into the city council's books to make suggestions to how the city council could be more efficient in its operations. I was the first to respond to her and to tell you I know that the Belize City Council is one of the most inefficient organizations. I don't need Audrey Matura to tell me that we are inefficient. We are making steps that are policy decisions to try to put the city council in the right fiscal order and this is necessary."
"What we want to hear from them is very meaningful proposals of how we could reduce the harmful impact on this redundancy on workers, not to hear whether or not we are spending adequately on security. She asked the question about a security vehicle. She wants to know who drives that vehicle, where is that vehicle park - that is not your business. Your business is to deal with the workers."
"When you come up with reasonable proposals, whatever you want us to do, if it is possible, we will do it. But don't tell me that you want to spend a month in city council to look at our budget to make proposals to us to minimize our staff. To me that's a waste of time."
That was at 9:30. We waited around until just before noon and the meeting was still in session. Word to our newsroom at 6:30 is that, quite incredibly, it is still going.
So what will happen to the security workers tomorrow? If the meeting finishes before the news ends, we'll let you know.
