And now we take you back to yesterday's meeting where new new proposals were laid out on the table.
And while both sides were unable to move past point two on their priority list, the government did offer the unions promissory notes.
You may recall that these notes were one of the proposals first put forward by the unions before the start of the strikes - along with other compensation suggestions, such as land. Well now the government has taken it up, and it's up to the unions to accept or reject it.
While BNTU president said they haven't discussed it with their membership as yet, the PSU president says the promissory note doesn't sound too promising.
Elena Smith, President, BNTU
"There's not a proposal that we have agreed to, there's a proposal that was placed on the table, the government side will take it to cabinet, and Tuesday we will take it to our members, get feedback from them, and then go back to the meeting on Thursday and present our position to the government side."
"They don't want to the cut any at all, we are fighting as hard as we can but if it is that there must be that cut, there's no other way out, there's no way for us the challenge it any way, then it's best that you get some kind of compensation for that if that has to be the end result."
Gerald Henry, President, PSU
"Once you remove ten percent out of my salary, now the promissory note will only be effective three years from now, so really and truly I won't be getting back that promissory three years down the road, so I still have to suffer for an entire year with the hope that maybe next year the full salary will be reinstated, there's no certainty for that. I think that's the scare or fear that membership has. They need the money now, they need to pay their bills now, they need to pay the mortgages now, and they won't have that money so they need something a little bit shorter term recovery, hopefully as the government has stated, we will be reviewing in six month intervals, the first six months coming up in October and we're hoping they will present us with real numbers and we can say okay fine because the country's rebounding, cruise tourism is coming back, so we're hopeful that the entire country will be back on its feet a little bit more in its short term so we can see some recovery."
Henry stated that he doesn't think his membership will agree to it, since they would rather not get the 10% cut at all. He explained that there are other methods that the government can use to soften the blow for the unions.
Gerald Henry, President, PSU
"The membership is still pretty much adamant that they don't want the ten percent, it's more an issue of not wanting the ten percent and I honestly believe that it is that the government can look into recommendations, and I keep making the same recommendations over and over. The government is in charge of utilities, if they can cut the utilities for us as public officers, let's say they cut the water bill, two percent, electricity, two percent, butane, they lower the price of butane, three percent. If they do those things and make sure that the prices of goods in the grocery store are controlled and minimized because those go up every week for no reason at all except to make the merchants more richer, if they can do things like that and control prices here in Belize, we wouldn't feel the impact of the ten percent that they need to remove from the government expenditure, but give it back to us in other ways, in savings, but they don't want to go there, I don't know why they don't want to go there. I also submitted that look, if it is that we will take this ten percent cut, since they're insisting on saying they're going from the taxes, when you get those taxes, they're taking 60 millions from us basically, if they collect back 60 million dollars from the 500 million dollars that is outstanding, then you could easily give us back our ten percent cut. But again there's no will on behalf of the part of the government to do anything of that sort."
Henry explained that in the first instance, the cut will only be for one year pending a review every six months.
