Almost one year after chaos ensued at the Port of Belize between the police and the Christian Workers Union, the CWU presented PBL with a 21 one day notice of industrial action. This notice was given on July 13th, after almost a week of go-slow. And to hopefully chart a less violent way forward, today the CWU met with the labor commissioner, who will now act as a mediator as CWU and PBL continue with their negotiations.
And if you think this feels like deja vu, well, the two entities have had years of back and forth concerning their CBA. And the union feels this issue should have been resolved without them having to take any sort of industrial action.
Evan "Mose" Hyde - President, CWU
"The labor commissioner invited the union along with our reps to get us to commit to meet with PBL so tell us about the dates that PBL has available so she has been actively trying to get us around the table and we are willing to meet with PBL right now, this afternoon, midnight, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. We want to meet but I think she still wanted us to come in and we expressed that there's urgency here and we believe it's important to act reflecting that urgency. I believe that she indicated to us that PBL has said that they are willing to have a discussion on Wednesday, earliest date, Wednesday next week. The clock is ticking because truth be told we are actually on a go slow on the sugar barge."
Reporter
"Since when?"
Evan "Mose" Hyde
"Since last week Thursday and so that is how we believe we've been able to get attention because we have tried multiple diplomatic channels, writing, different areas, we had a press conference. All that is in an effort to try to have everybody understand that we are stuck and there is a lot of build up and negative energy, lets get around a table, we believe unfortunately like all previous instances that only when we have to take on these extraordinary actions that we are able to get some movement. Our brothers are sick and tired of having to do this, you have to understand, this is almost as annual as September celebrations, it's actually almost a year to the day that we found ourselves in the similar situation in 2020. The last thing we want is to be forced into industrial action, the last thing we want to be in a situation where we have physical confrontation. This is not the desired route but unfortunately, consistently, this is the only productive route when we are able to get some action on these issues which deeply affect our members. 9:20
But this go-slow doesn't only affect PBL it also affects the stevedores, the sugar cane farmers, and ASR/BSI. President Evan "Mose" Hyde is more concerned about the first two, though, and he has sat down with the farmers and promised them to end the go-slow as soon as progress is made.
Evan "Mose" Hyde - President, CWU
I am not here to speak about BSI/ASR they are the one who in our view have intention of violating the terms of the MOU that was signed in 2006 that is about to threaten the annual earnings of my members so you have to forgive me for not wanting to engage and being concerned about their position but we are concerned about the cane farmers, we are concerned about he fact that, in our view, it's unfair arrangement where they have to cover 65% of the transportation cost and in that endeavor we have had a conversation with the representatives from the Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association and as we indicated to them, BSI cannot call us to a table but they could and we made ourselves available to them and they asked us what was going on, they basically wanted to know, they expressed to us the financial impact on them and we spent a lot of time and when we finished that conversation, we got from them a sense that our answer had illuminated the issues for them and enlightened them and they definitely identify with the common ground of dealing with a multi national entity that is not air, that is not respectful, and that is not just. And we gave commitments to each other. I gave my word, when we get PBL around the table to discuss and negotiate the issues that we have, and we get the engagement of government on the issue of the MOU of 2006, I will ask my members at that point of time to move off rom the go slow on the sugar barge out of respect for them and for the understanding that they expressed to us in that meeting, I can't speak to that, they would have to speak to what they left that meeting with I can just express what we left that meeting with and the word we gave to them. About ten days or so we'll be marking that fateful day when 35 of our members, including 4 of our reps, were unceremoniously dumped by text messages which resulted in that confrontation that day. Our staff still suffers from the long lasting repercussions of that day, still without a CBA, and still facing certain situations that are very very unfair to them. We demand the space and time to further and conclude that matter so they get what they truly deserve, a CBA. We deal with a company, a receivership, quote unquote, a one decade old receivership that we feel has not been held accountable the way that it should be held accountable."
