_{Andrew Baird, President of KHMHAWU}

Pension dispute goes to the Labor Minister for mediation.

by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Wed. June 25, 2025

An estimated 40 employees at the national referral hospital, Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital (KHMH), in Belize City, called in sick on Tuesday, June 24.

This move by the members of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital Authority Workers Union (KHMHAWU) was reportedly a staged response to unresolved pension issues that are being presented to the KHMH Authority.

The president of the KHMHAWU, Andrew Baird, has noted, however, that all the workers are entitled to their sick days, and he shied away from confirming it was a form of industrial action—suggesting that it could be an expression of discontent on the part of the hospital workers, or the hospital could be harboring a contaminant or some type of bacteria, which is causing their employees to be ill.

“I cannot tell anybody that they can’t call in sick or that they cannot take sick leave. What are you going to blame for that? Maybe there are a bunch of disgruntled workers in an institution, and the CEO and management are not looking after the people’s interests. Who knows? Maybe a bacteria or something was going on in the hospital and [they] got sick, have been checked to see if there’s anything abnormal going on? But yet, they want to blame the union. It is not the union’s duty or mission to go along and find out who will get sick in the hospital. That’s an issue for the management to deal with. Yesterday I was ill and I did not show up to work, but we are entitled to sick leave; it is not something Karl Heusner gave us, or we have to beg and ask for it,” said Baird.

“We have our phased-in industrial action, and it was outlined as to the type of industrial action. If you go back to our document, you will find out that there is nothing about a sick-out; we listed and wrote to them about the list of actions they could expect. If there are a bunch of people at Karl Heusner who got sick, maybe they need to investigate if something is contagious,” he added.

The KHMHAWU is fighting for a pension plan that, as promised by the Government of Belize approximately two years ago, would extend pension eligibility to over 300 employees who started working for the hospital before 2018.

The union has met with the government side, which includes Joseph Waight, Financial Secretary (FinSec); Hon. Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health; Chandra Cansino, CEO of the KHMH; and Martin Marshalleck, Chairman of the KHMH, on multiple occasions, but an agreement has not yet been reached.

“The Authority is acting out of bad faith. The board chair promised to make the corrections and set up a letter, which was not done. They have agreed that they would come back with a reconsideration of 10% of the entire motion for the pension fund. They did not meet that deadline on the 20th of June; they sent the proposal to us on the 23rd of June, Monday, stated that they’re moving again from the 4% employer portion of the pension fund, but now to 4% ex gratia, which we considered to have been even less than what was offered before,” said Baird.

Now, the KHMH Management has declared a trade dispute between them and the KHMHAWU, as the matter has yet to be resolved, and the matter has been forwarded to the Minister of Labor, Hon. Florencio Marin, who has yet to give a response.