For that week we've been following the labour dispute between the Christian Workers Union and the Belize City Council. Last week, the CWU announced in a press release that it will not accept CitCo's position that it will send a counter proposal for their Collective Bargaining Agreement on March 31st.
The union is demanding a date before the municipal elections. Mayor Bernard Wagner responded last Friday saying that his council does not intend to bind another Council to a CBA right before elections.
But what CWU's president explained today via their Zoom press conference is that they are not seeking a signed CBA a month before elections - but rather an opportunity to sit around the discussion table.
But, according to a document sent by CitCo's PR, they were in fact given that opportunity during a virtual meeting on December 23. The document states quote, "During a virtual conference held December 23, 2020 with the CWU, the President flatly denied a request by the BCC to discuss the CBA and demanded the counter proposal in writing." End quote.
Today when we asked about Hyde about this, he said plainly that is a flat out lie.
Evan Mose Hyde, President, CWU
"If such a document was officially released and that is the official position of the council, then that's a lie. In the event that the document exists, then that is an absolute lie."
Courtney Menzies:
"So they never approached you saying, hey, let's discuss the CBA."
Evan Mose Hyde, President, CWU
"No then it would be that we were either fool or liars to be here right now."
"That we denied a discussion about the CBA, well let me go back to that meeting, that meeting came out of the uproar that was caused by the change in a commitment to provide the 50% remaining, outstanding salaries that was taken during the height of the pandemic. And they changed it and the members were in an uproar and we engaged them to try and see if we could have a resolution. And that was the essence of the meeting and in that meeting, we were told that all this union wants to talk about is CBA. In that meeting, we were told that instead of being grateful for not being fired during the pandemic like so many different places, that instead of expressing the gratitude, the union and its reps want to talk about CBA. Quote unquote how does CBA have anything to do with the fact that you were not fired. You should be grateful. And we expressed how offended we were by that and we expressed at that point in time that we were tired of being put off on the matter of the counter proposal and that we required of the council, a deadline and the deadline for that deadline to be presented to us would be the end of the week, that be the end f the week we would know by what time we could get out counter proposal so it couldn't be anything further from the truth when it comes to the matter of the Cba. In fact we were essentially mocked and essentially chastised even for bringing up the matter of the CBA, so I have not heard that and I hope that is not what is being official stated because that is absolutely untrue."
Hyde also clarified the CWU's case - emphasizing the need for negotiations at least begin.
Evan Mose Hyde, President, CWU
"The characterization of the CWU position that was described in the interview last Friday by the mayor that this is an effort to do a last minute kind of extortion of the present administration so as to bind future administrations to create a signed CBA that then is handed off to whichever administration takes over City Hall after the upcoming municipal elections is extremely inaccurate."
"As we have said to the city council, this is not rocket science. We have been a part of many bargaining processes. The country proposals usually take about 6 weeks roughly for us to get a response. And so the fact that we are not 15 or 16 months in this kind of circling pattern waiting and waiting to get our counterproposals is absolutely unacceptable. And in our view, we don't have an explanation for it. We cannot accept that the pandemic has been so disruptive that the matter of having a replacement upgrading version of the present workers contract is unable to be completed or at the very least a counter proposal presenting to us."
"I don't have a problem discussing pandemic related economy but what that does is lend credibility to the false narrative that the CWU's problem is one of getting a CBA signed and getting all the proposals that we have presented signed. What we're describing is that this is a natural process, where we sit down and we negotiate. The case to be made about what the economics realities are, that is to be made around the negotiating table."
The CWU submitted their proposal in October 2019. The Council stated that they had assigned a team in early 2020 but before they had the chance to create the counter proposal, COVID-19 struck.
