Last night, we told you about the marathon meeting that senior Government officials held with the Joint Unions Negotiating Team.
The two sides were locked in extended budget talks for almost 8 hours.
This meeting was requested so that the Government could properly explain its written response to the counter-proposal prepared by the unions on how best to save 80 million dollars without touching their salaries.
As we told you, the unions viewed the written response from GOB as a rejection of their counter-proposal, and so, the two sides discussed their differences all the way into the night. We are told that that the meeting, which was scheduled to start at 1 p.m., ended around 8:40 p.m.
Shortly after exiting that meeting, BNTU President Elena Smith and her team went live on Facebook for a 15-minute explanation to the union membership about where the negotiations currently stand.
Here's an excerpt in which she asked the teachers for patience while the negotiating theme tries to look after their interest in these budget talks:
Hon. Elena Smith - President, BNTU
"We met with government officials today, and we just finished our meeting at about 8:45 [pm]. So, it was a long day for us, your union team. And we are looking at having another meeting on Good Friday, and another meeting again on Easter Monday. And so, it means for us, as your leaders, that were will be no Easter Weekend for us as we continue to work on these negotiations. I am unable to, at this time, provide you what those discussions today yielded, or what it is that we are looking at for the other meetings because we need to have those things in writing from the Government officials. And so, when we do, then we are able to share that information with you. But, I just thought that it would be best that at least you are aware of what is going on, and how we are proceeding. And we have planned, for the remainder of this coming week, starting tomorrow, we do have branch meetings planned where we going to be updating our members as it relates to the discussions so far. You, our members, know, that when we go into these meetings and these negotiations that we don't go there with our personal positions. We go into these meetings based on what it is that you, the members, would have shared with us. I also think that it's important for us to understand that you can't just expect that after 1 meeting, we would be able to reach agreements. For some reason, it seems that we have some of our members who believe that we are not doing enough with these negotiations, in maybe representing you, our members. I don't know how we have gotten to that point as yet because we don't yet have a final agreement on what it is that we are negotiating. So, again, I am asking that you give us your support, as we go through these negotiations. We don't want to be going into these negotiations worrying that our members are not supporting us, our members are not believing us, our members don't feel that we are doing enough for them."
The Union representatives who participated in these budget talks intend to conduct consultations via teleconference with the different BNTU Branches during the course of this week. As you heard, the government and the Joint Unions Negotiating Team will conduct follow-up meetings on Good Friday and Easter Monday.
We requested an interview with the Public Service Union, but we were told that their representatives must also consult with their membership before they can make any public comments.
