Over a thousand union members from at least four different unions marched through the Belize City streets in their largest demonstration to date since the start of the protests.
A sea of mostly green and yellow rolled through the city streets, reinforcing their message to the government that they will not take the salary cuts. They also won't let go of the good governance legislation that the country has been promised year after year.
Courtney Menzies followed this massive demonstration and has this story.
Tensions were high yesterday when the unions and the government met for the second time this week - and out of that friction was born the largest demonstration the unions have had in the past two months of protesting.
Green and yellow shirts flooded the streets of Belize City - joined by members of their sister unions.
The crowd gathered at Memorial Park, and made their way to the Belchina Bridge, before circling back around and eventually ending back at the park for a short rally.
And with their flags held high and drums beating loudly, not even the heavy rain followed by the blazing sun could stop this crowd.
PSU president, Gerald Henry, who marched at the front of the crowd, said that they were done holding back their forces.
Gerald Henry, President, PSU
"What this is all about is simply a show of solidarity from as many of our members as possible, we have always been holding back, I have always told you and other reporters that we have been holding back in terms of our numbers, and we still haven't really engaged with all of members, we just wanted to show a little bit more force out here today and just to let everyone realise exactly what the support is like and moving forward, we will see this will start to grow and grow and grow until again like I said you know we need to get the government back and realise that this thing is very serious."
"I know it is a very powerful number, you see it is a relatively good mix that we have, with yellow and green, it's a beautiful mix in fact because it's blended throughout the process, you didn't see a group of green and not see a group of yellow, so we have significant numbers out here. We know that for PSU we are just building up, I want to ask our public officers to understand what I mean when I say we need to wake up the sleeping giant, the sleeping giant is the Public Service Union of Belize, we have over 14,000 public officers, imagine if we get half of those public officers out here."
And marching beside him was president of the BNTU, Elena Smith. Their union has never been short on numbers and today, she said they had to let out a little more of their forces.
Elena Smith, President, BNTU
"Since we've been on strike, this time around, this has been the biggest crowd that we have had, but again we have always said that we try to maintain as much as we possibly can to follow the protocols in place but there comes a time when your members say enough is enough and we have show our power and so today was that day when they felt that more of them needed to be out and so we did not stop them from coming out."
As they near their two week mark since the start of their strike, Smith said they haven't been keeping count but conceded that this time around, it will be a lot longer than their record 11 day strike in 2016.
Elena Smith, President, BNTU
"It's eleven days already? I didn't even realise, we are fighting that we are not even counting days. But I don't think the length of time we are out compared to the last time has any negative significance, it simply means the things we are doing now are a little more extensive than the last time we were out and so it's going to take us a little bit longer and so for that reason the time might be longer than the last time."
But in this case, their salaries won't be docked while they are on strike - an agreement made by the union and the government in yesterday's meeting.
And joining them was a union who went through their own bout of protests in last year. According to CWU president, Evan "Mose" Hyde, most of their members want to show support physically, but can't because of their work schedules. Still, he has encouraged them to look for other means and added that the BNTU showed solidarity when they needed it the most, and now it was important for them to return the favor.
Evan "Mose" Hyde, President, CWU
"Sending out a press release is yesterday's form of solidarity so we have not even sent out a press release, what we have said to our members is wherever and whenever you can find the time to be physically present, do so, do so in our CWU shirts, if you're unable to be there in person, there are many other ways to demonstrate solidarity, you can go out during lunch, provide water…"
"For us, for me personally, a little less than a year ago, in the pandemic, we took a position of rejecting 10% on behalf of the staff at PBL which resulting in the infamous incident of tear gas and rubber bullets. If you go back to the footage, you will see that the president of the Belize National Teachers Union was there, did not run, did not step away and in fact stood in solidarity with our members there. That is real, you feel me? So it's like we have to figure out how to be there for each other, that's what unionism by its very definition means."
Another meeting between the joint unions and the government is set for Thursday - and until then, the strikes will continue, and, form what we saw today, the results are solidifying.
