Tonight, the Belize Communication Workers for Justice may be under political attack - but they are not letting up.
Today, they boarded a bus and took their protest to the National Assembly in Belmopan to coincide with the budget presentation - which is the biggest day on the parliamentary calendar. The BCWJ hoped it would be an opportunity for the parliamentarians to see them - especially the Prime Minister.
And while the BCWJ's protests remain peaceful, they say they're not going back to BTL, so the PM's intervention is needed. Courtney Menzies was on the ground today and has this story.
The Belize Communication Workers for Justice took their fight to parliament today as they protested in front of the National Assembly during today's House Meeting. They say they have a request for the prime minister:
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep.
"We're asking the prime minister, we came here because it's time to escalate this matter to people that do make the decisions. As we all know, BTL is owned by the Belizean people, the board members that are there are appointed by the present government of Belize and so we are asking for a meeting with the prime minister so that we can put this item to rest."
Courtney Menzies:
"Do you believe he will come down here and give you guys an audience?"
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep
"I don't know if he will come down here while we're out here but I think that he will accept the meeting with us."
But while he didn't go down to speak with them, the Leader of the Opposition, along with the Mesopotamia area rep, did. Their rep, Emily Turner, was able to tell Tracy Panton what their plight was, and the LOO promised to raise the matter in the adjournment.
And while the BCWJ has tried not to politicize their issue, they still have the support of the Opposition party.
Tracy Panton, Leader of the Opposition
"A ruling has been made, a determination has been made and yet we have these workers still having to protest and to demand what is theirs. They have worked, they have earned their severance pay and the highest court has made a determination. Why it is that this government does not see the need to intervene in this matter blows my mind. It is important as they protest they know they are not protesting alone. They are our mothers, fathers, siblings, they're our neighbors, they're members of our constituencies. They have to know that the representatives are standing with them in solidarity."
But that wasn't the BCWJ's only form of protest today - at 11:00 this morning, hundreds of text messages were sent to area reps of different constituencies that their members live in. And while we could see some of the parliamentarians checking their phones - which is not uncommon - Turner says the messages will keep coming.
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep
"We have 310 people in our group, these are people from north, south, east, and west, the cases and Belizeans that are living in the diaspora, we all came together and sent a text message to the area representatives that we are a part of their constituency and some of us sent to other ministers that we believe have a big influence or need to take a part of this protest action and so our second protest action was to send that text message at 11am. We will also be sending it out to the public so they can join us, a lot of our family members want to join us which means that we expect these text messages will multiply at least 3 times because our families have 3 to 5 people, even our grandparents, especially our grandparents, they really want to join in this because this is the first time they're seeing a mixture of younger people that are standing up for the rights of people that you would say are voiceless and that's what we are doing."
"We got a message just now from one of the area reps where he is trying to pingpong this back into BTL's court but I'm asking the question, who is running things, who owns BTL?"
And promptly at 1:00 this afternoon, the protest finished. But the BCWJ didn't leave just yet - they wanted to sit in on the rest of the House Meeting, but they were barred from entering at first.
Mike Augustus, BCWJ Rep
"What we are about to do as Belizeans is getting an opportunity to go in there and sit while the House is meeting and all of a sudden we're Belizeans but we don't have a right to go in there. Our protest is over. We adhered to every single item that was placed before us which would be a violated. Now, yes the shirt, but it's not PUP or UDP shirt."
Courtney Menzies:
"And you turned it inside out."
Mike Augustus, BCWJ Rep
"I turned mine inside out and as a Belizean I can't go in there."
YaYa Marin, BCWJ Protestor
"She said she has to consult so somebody said who are you going to consult with, because you're the ranking officer, she didn't say who she went to consult with. One of the things they were concerned with our shirts, so some of us turned our shirts inside out, put on another shirt, waiting over 15 minutes to get permission to go into a House Meeting, for what reason? We have every right to go in there. Now if we storm it, they will say it's problem we're looking for but it's not problems that we are looking for, we have a right to enter the House."
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep
"I hear the House of Representatives was recently renovated, they are doing a budget speech so we need to understand. We spent the first part of the budget speech outside, we want to hear it outside and we just want to go and sit. We have already, and we have the recording, the fact that we gave our instructions, we want to come in and sit peacefully and be quiet and we will divide evenly when we sit in there. I've never seen inside of National Assembly so for me it's going to be the first time."
Ultimately, they were allowed inside but then another issue arose - they weren't allowed to sit in the gallery facing the government, and were told to sit on the "opposition" side:
Mike Augustus, BCWJ Rep
"We are dubbed the Opposition. We were going in there, we want to sit there, we were dubbed the Opposition. I need for them to explain that."
A few minutes later, however, they were allowed into the other side, and the Speaker of the House clarified that she never gave directives on where they were allowed or not allowed to sit.
And while the BCWJ members had to return home shortly after, they say they'll be back at it soon.
Emily Turner, BCWJ Rep
"We are here today, we expect that we will be protesting again at the end of this week, you guys saw when we went to have our pizza and coke, we kind of flurried people and they got jumpy so we might just have to go there. Since we got that beautiful reaction, we might just have to go there with a full protest because we love when they react like that, and we have to go to all the board members, we have to go to all the ministers' things, but we won't give up, we have to continue."
