And finally tonight, we have an update on the Essential Services Arbitration Tribunal. That's the body which gave a ruling on redundancy in favour of the stevedores and against the Port of Belize almost two years ago. But the Port has refused to pay that redundancy award and challenged the tribunal. Even government ministers have said it must be appealed to a higher court. But, the tribunal which was created to settle just such disputes says it has jurisdiction and its ruling is binding. Attorney for the CWU stevedores Darrell Bradley explained:
Darrell Bradley, Attorney
"What the ESAT ruled is that it does have jurisdiction, and so the matter will proceed further now to a full hearing. And what that is in relation to is the previous decision that was made that the Port of Belize Limited should come to the table in relation to meaningful discussions and negotiations in relation to a payment."
"And they had argued that the ESAT does not have jurisdiction if you want to deal with that, go to court. And we said, no, this is an all -encompassing legislation that provides that all trade disputes should be settled and should go before the ESAT."
"And this will proceed because they made a ruling in relation to the fact that they do have jurisdiction and the matter will be fully ventilated before them. And I suspect that they would give a final ruling on the substantive point as to what do we do with the previous Tribunal award that was made, now I believe it's about 20 months ago. When we argued it was 17 months."
"And this is one of the things again, you should have a spirit of compliance. If there's a ruling that's made, the ruling should be complied with."
Reporter
"In the meantime, I note that there are maybe a couple of stevedores who called in to talk shows to say, well, we will strike in a few days."
Darrell Bradley, Attorney
"So I can't speak to that because I am more than a lawyer dealing with it."
Reporter
"With this process on going, there should be no strike, right?"
Darrell Bradley, Attorney
"So what the law says is that if there is a process, this is one of the things that was raised. If there is a process, then the process is to go before the tribunal. And what that does is that that acts as a limitation on persons going to strike. It's the settlement of disputes in essential services act."
"So if you're before the tribunal, then you can't go on strike."
We'll keep following this case.
