K.H.M.H Workers Union Prez Says GoB Committed to Pay Pensions

On Monday, the K.H.M.H. Workers Union leaders met with government representatives in Belmopan to discuss gratuity and pensions for about three employees. These workers have been at the hospital since as far back as 2000 but still lack these benefits. A pension scheme was introduced in 2018 for employees hired from that year onward. In 2023, Prime Minister John Briceño promised to form a committee to create a compensation formula for these long-serving employees. The committee was formed, and they had two meetings, but there have been no follow-ups since October 2023. This lack of progress led to two protests by the employees over the past two weeks. Today, News Five’s Marion Ali spoke with Andrew Baird, President of the K.H.M.H. Workers Union, for an update and filed this report.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

On Monday, thirty employees from the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital joined the leadership of their workers union for a meeting with government representatives. The session aimed to further discuss the reinstatement of the employees’ gratuity and pension benefits. According to President Andrew Baird, the meeting was amicable and productive.

 

Andrew Baird, President, K.H.M.H. Workers Union

“We discuss probable ways of how a payout could occur. We have not made any agreement. There were just proposals on the table there. We and we had discussion in reference to those proposals and stuff like that. There was a commitment from both sides where the government side would need to set forward not a criteria, but a template of requirements for the three hundred employees to ensure that they meet the requirements to be compensated for their services.”

 

The union will complete the template with each employee’s years of service to calculate their gratuity and pension. Baird mentioned that although this issue dates back two decades, the government is clearly committed to paying the employees.

 

Andrew Baird

“I can be honest and to say this meeting really shows that especially from the FinSec position that they want to get this over with and we would hope that within the next two, three months that we will have this behind us.”

Since 2010, the hospital has been trying to set up a preparatory committee to create a pension scheme or provident fund. In 2018, it was decided that a provident fund would be best for new staff as their retirement fund, but nothing was set up for the existing staff who continued working. According to the K.H.M.H Act, hospital employees should have pensions, but the previous government chose to have the hospital run by a statutory board instead of as a government institution, without ensuring a pension scheme was in place. Baird believes that despite this oversight over the years, it’s an easy fix for the Government of Belize.

 

Andrew Baird

“It takes a stroke of a pen from the prime minister to say to the Governor General let’s make the staff of Kark Heusner public officers so that they can be pensionable in accordance with the Government Pension Act because the pension act is clear for you to be pensionable from the government, you have to be a public officer. So, without that declaration of us becoming public officers, we won’t be able to collect the government pension, but the government does acknowledge that we are to be compensated because of the Karl Heusner Act.”

 

Baird mentioned that another meeting between the K.H.M.H Workers Union and the government is set for two weeks from now. By then, the government will have provided a template for the union to use in determining the employees’ benefits. Even though the meeting is just before the general election, Baird told News Five that the employees are ready to push for their retirement benefits right up to and beyond the election. Marion Ali for News Five.