"Sacrifice" - that's what the upcoming budget will be about - since government has a 500 million dollar deficit to cover. And they're looking to the 20 thousand teachers and public officers for 80 million dollars of that saving. 60 million in the form of a wage cut, and 20 million in the form of a government freeze.
But, very strong public declarations from the unions are that they aren't going to stand by and take that cut.
The PSU put it very plainly in a press release today that they are not in agreement with government's proposed wage cut and increment freeze.
And this statement by the Prime Minister last night served to harden the union position:
Hon. John Briceno - Prime Minister
"Only the teachers and the public service have not done any kind of sacrifice. Their salaries have been coming in every month."
In a release today the PSU called those remarks "utterly disrespectful and intolerable".
So, was the PM willing to walk back from it today. Jules Vasquez sat down with him for an exclusive interview and that is the first thing he asked:
Jules Vasquez
"Do you wish to distance yourself from those remarks?"
Hon. John Briceno
"Well I don't think that any time I would want to get the public service union and the teacher's union upset because really that was never my intention to get them upset but I was just trying to make the point that we have been open with them, we've been very frank with them, we have responded to everything that they have asked for. They were saying even the list of employees that they were asking for, we delivered that on Monday, so we've been acting in good faith and in effect what I'm asking basically is ask all Belizeans to do some sort of sacrifice. Whether they have sacrificed in the past or not, they probably have but the point is that at this time, their country needs them and not in any way I wanted to offend them but just to make the point that we're all in this together. It's not that some is in one boat and others in another boat, we're all in this together and we have to work together to be able to fix what is in front of us."
Jules Vasquez
"So, you do accept that teachers and public officers have made sacrifices?"
Hon. John Briceno
"Everybody have made sacrifices but at the time right now, we're talking about a fiscal imbalance, a massive fiscal imbalance of 500 million dollars fiscal imbalance that we have to find a way how to address it by continuing to print money, then we'll be reckless and the repercussions for that action would be far worse than if we were to make some sacrifices at this time. I want to make something very clear; I have great regard and respect for the teachers. My mother was a teacher, I knew how hard when I was a little kid, my mother working late at night doing lesson plans and checking papers and so forth. I see it with my wife, so I fully understand and appreciate and accept the kind of work and sacrifice that they do every day with the children's in the schools. We have a problem, we've presented it to them, now if they can come up with a different way on how to save that 80 million dollars, then please I'll be the first one to accept it."
Jules Vasquez
"But it has to be in two weeks, it cannot be a 3 month study."
Hon. John Briceno
"It cannot be a 3 month study."
Jules Vasquez
"But sir how will you respond to the criticism that well they don't have 3 months to do it because you all couldn't get serious about the negotiations until after the municipal elections, so your considerations were primarily political."
Hon. John Briceno
"That's not true."
Jules Vasquez
"You all have said from the time you won that we can't sustain this as we knew then and that you're going to have to get a pay cut perhaps if the study had started from November."
Hon. John Briceno
"But that's not true and I'll tell you why, it's not true because from one of my first interviews, the first message I gave out, I said we're borrowing to the tune of 1 million dollars a day, that's unsustainable, we cannot continue to spend money the way it is but it took us a time to put all of the information together, once we did that, we've started consulting since January we've been talking to the different groups and show them what we have, so this has been going on for sometime. So, we have not been playing politics, we've been doing this discussion way before."
Jules Vasquez
"But isn't it fair to say that the specific proposal of a 10% 3-year wage cut was not introduced until Thursday March 4th, the day after municipal elections? That is a fact sir."
Hon. John Briceno
"I am not sure if that is correct but I will not argue about the dates but the point that I want to make is that we have met several times before March 4th and we've pointed out to them the imbalance, so they knew that something has to give."
