And while the unions are hoping for regular cost of living adjustments, the government is looking at the bottom line on the wage bill. The Prime Minister discussed it no less than three time sin his budget speech when he underscored that it stands at 698 million dollars, representing 56% of all government expenditure.
The Union leaders weren't moved by that argument though:
Sharon Frazer, President, APSSM
"You have to understand that we don't hire anybody, that is one thing, they do. Successive governments have come in and they have done the hiring so that, from what we have seen, although nobody can give us the actual figure of how many persons are employed by the government of Belize particularly in the public sector, at the end of the day, they are doing the hiring. So if it's bloated, if there are ghost workers, they are responsible. So we won't take any responsibility for that and we agree, they shouldn't be spending money and not getting value for money. That is why we're here. Part of our collective bargaining has to do with performance, having to do with being accountable, having to do with ensuring that we give government value for money, so at the end of the day, I don't want anybody out there to feel that this is all about money. We recognized and when we decided, well let me not say decided and accepted because they thrust the 10% cut on us but it's not that we couldn't have done something about it. There have been a number of cases in the Caribbean where they have taken away people's salary and they have gone to court and won. But we recognized that we needed to make sacrifices and that is why as brother Dean said it was rough on us when we came to this table and negotiated during COVID and during that time. But I don't want anybody to think that we are condoning a bloated government, a bloated public service, a bloated anything. In fact, we want, we've been asking for the numbers, we've been asking for how many people have been employed by government. They're the ones who have not given it to us."
