2 weeks ago, we told you how the Christian Workers Union came out swinging at the Belize City Council. That's after 53 workers - 33 of are CWU members - were being forced into retirement, so that City Hall could conserve finances and reduce their severance liabilities in the long term.
Well, today, the CWU took aim at another municipal government; this time it's the Belmopan City Council.
Several days ago, the new Mayor and her Council terminated the employment of 25 workers, and in the opinion of the CWU, these former employees were blind-sided.
In a virtual press conference hosted today, President, Mose Hyde discussed the issue with the media:
Evan "Mose" Hyde - President, CWU
"At the end of last week, 25 members of the Belmopan City Council were given their walking papers. The situation there is that we have sent a letter to the Belmopan City Council, and the Labour Commissioner in that we feel ambushed, and we believe this process has not been handled according to labour law requirements. We have been in contact with the Belmopan City Council. She has indicated to us that they intend to do re-engineering. We were told we would get a re-engineering plan, and so we went to Belmopan on June 23rd, when we're supposed to get a re-engineering plan. We were told that the re-engineering plan was not ready as yet."
"We assured our members in this meeting of June the 23rd that we have met with the Belmopan City Council, that there was going to be a plan presented to us, and as according to law, would have an opportunity to respond, and to see if our efforts could result in a mitigation of the negative impact of termination. We were honest with our members, and we thought that we were doing it in a spirit of collaboration, only to find out days after that our members - 18 of the 25 people who have been terminated are members of the Christian Workers Union. So, we feel ambushed, but we also feel that this has not been handled according to the labour laws."
This evening, we reached out to the Mayor for comment, but her secretary informed us that she isn't making any. We were directed to her public relations officer, who told us that until he has heard the Union's full, unabridged comments, he cannot comment.
