And at the House of Representatives meeting today, the prime minister spoke about the resolution. He conceded that the issues with the stevedores had been volatile for years, and every now and again it would flare up into a protest or a strike - or, as it did in 2020, into tear gas and rubber bullets.
Briceno said his government felt it was time to start dealing with the dilemma head on by tackling one of the major issues that the stevedores had, which was the way the privatization of PBL had been handled - which did happen under a previous PUP government. Briceno said that in the end the Cabinet shuffle made a difference.
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"During the strike action from the CWU, we had people talking to the stevedores trying to get a good understanding of what are some of the issues that have been outstanding for such a long time and one of the issues was the way the privatization was done, that the stevedores were never taken into account for the number of years of work they have done during that time. We believe it is best to just put this to an end. It is something that needs to be corrected and felt that instead of having this fester and continue every now and again to flare up, because at the end of the day when these things happens it costs everyone including the consumers and as a responsible government we said let us deal with it once and for all and Minister Chebat, we moved him at the right time, because we needed somebody with law, with a legal background and so we appointed him at the right time, so he sat down and long respectful negotiations with the CWU to ba able to come to a compromise and they agreed to the 1.5 million dollars, but its not just to give it to them just like that, we are going to give it to them and within 90 days they will have to give a full accounting of every cent that was used."
Reporter
"Is that agreement for that 1.5 million dollars a concession or an acknowledgement of that document, that MOU or that agreement with previous government that should shipping services go to the Port of Big Creek, the government would compensate or provide some sort of assistance to the stevedores?"
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"You could interpret in any way that you wish and I say that respectfully not to argue with you, but basically we felt by giving this 1.5 million compensation, most of these things can be put to rest."
In the next 90 days, the stevedores will have to provide the government with their accounting records of how the money was used.
