As the government grapples with a ballooning wage bill, union leaders are making one thing clear: that’s not their burden to carry. Prime Minister John Briceño has pointed out that a large chunk of government spending goes toward paying teachers and public servants, a concern as salary negotiations continue. But the Joint Union Negotiation Team isn’t losing sleep over it. According to Sharon Frazer, President of the Association of Public Service Senior Managers, the unions are focused on fair compensation, not the government’s budgeting woes.
Sharon Frazer, President, A.P.S.S.M.
“You have to understand that we don’t hire anybody, successive governments have come in and they have done the hiring, so that from what we have seen, although nobody has given us the actual figure in terms of how many persons are employed by the government of Belize, particularly within the public sector, at the end of the day they are doing the hiring, so if it is bloated, if there are ghost workers, they are responsible. We wouldn’t take any responsibility for that and we agree they should not be spending money and not getting value for money. That is why we are here. Part of our collective bargaining has to do with performance, having to do with being accountable, ensuring we give government value for money. At the end of the day I don’t want anybody to feel this is all about money. We recognize. I don’t want anybody to think we are condoning a bloated government, a bloated public service, a bloated anything. In fact, we want, we have been asking for the numbers, we have been asking how many people are employed by government. They are the ones not giving it to us. In fact I will tell you today, brother Dean was saying he was prepared to resign to go look for those persons. That is what he said.”
