CWU Demands that Government Comes Clean with Stevedores

The C.W.U. has pointed out the flaw in the Labor Minister’s decision to set up the tribunal. While the law does give the Minister the power to form a tribunal when a notice of industrial action is received, the principles of natural justice and fair practices mean the current tribunal can’t be seen as impartial.

 

Leonora Flowers, President, C.W.U.

“We are asking the government to do what it needs to do to come clean. You own the port, you can make an offer to the stevedores and resolve this matter.  Cost of living has gone up for every single worker in the country of Belize.  Every single household can tell you, what I use to buy with a hundred dollars, I can no longer buy that. My bags are this tiny when I go to the stores and the government knows that.  We have a statistical institute that explains that from month to month.  So the government, we are asking them to come to the table, make a decent offer and close the deal, resolve it to the extent that you don’t need to empanel a tribunal which is a farce, in the face of the Belizean people whom you came to on the eighth of December 2023 and said that we took over the port, we acquired the port for the people of Belize. It now belongs to the government, but they still continue to take us down the same road that the other person took us. How can that be just?”