A long-running labor dispute between stevedores and the Port of Belize has taken a new turn after the Essential Services Arbitration Tribunal known as ESAT dismissed the case following the union's refusal to sign a revised confidentiality agreement.
The dismissal came after a meeting held at the Labour Department office in Belize City today, where representatives from the Christian Workers Union (CWU) and stevedores met with the ESAT panel to discuss the ongoing dispute related to their collective bargaining agreement. According to CWU President Leonora Flowers, the union declined to sign a six-page confidentiality agreement presented by the tribunal panel, arguing that the document was too restrictive.
Leonora Flowers, President, CWU
"We had a meeting with the Port of Belize based on the ESAT Essential Services Arbitration Tribunal. We should say we had a meeting with the panel, a panel which to my mind has lost focus on what was the TOR and what they were sent here to do."
"They will say that we refused to sign the confidentiality agreement, but no way can we have signed that confidentiality agreement with the amount of things that they are telling us in there."
"We have nothing to hide. The CWU have nothing to hide. The stevedors have nothing to hide. Everybody know our business, the court is the one that refuses to say what is their statement over the years. Nobody has done any audit of the court."
"Until recently, we were told, I think it was in December, by the chair, the current chair, that yes, now, we have audited statement. We said to the chair at the time, well, just let us set aside the ESAP and you tell us what's in the books and then we can move on."
"Offer something to the stevedores, nothing was offered. I put this squarely, squarely on the government of Belize. If the port belongs to us, if they're planning to pack up the port and sell it, talk to the stevedors."
"Prefer something, essential services tribunal. We wasted a whole year. Today is the 11th of March. It's 13 months that this process started. 13 months. And we are still here and they told us it's dismissed today."
"This must be a plot to get something else out of us, but there is nothing else to get out of Stevedores."
Flowers said the union had previously agreed to sign a shorter two-page version of the agreement in August but was unwilling to accept the revised version. Saying, quote, "We have nothing to hide"
Reporter
"The stevedores had come to the ESAT after they had been informed of a twenty-one day notice of strike action, and it's in relation to the CBA and their points at this CWU. So what does it mean?"
"It means you won't get any salary. What happens next then?"
Leonora Flowers, President, CWU
"It means that we wasted, like I said before, we wasted 13 months, exactly 13 months since the date the panel was invoked. 13 months, nothing, nothing happened."
"We must go back now to the Port. We must sit together, as the chair said, as adults and try to work out something. When that's the same panel that said they will see if they were properly compiled, they were never properly compiled."
"And I figured that they knew that. So that's why the reason now. Because government owns the port. Government is going to set up its tribunal. It's going to set up a panel to come and decide this. It was improperly."
"And government has a chair and two other members on the ESAT. It was not properly compiled and they know that, but they never got a legal opinion. Although they promised us to give us a legal opinion, it has not been done."
"They also promised and said we can go to mediation. They never did that. But they want to sucker us into signing a confidentiality agreement, which we have got legal opinion on. The Port happily agreed to sign a confidentiality agreement, which I said to them, it moved from two page to three page to today, six page document."
