Labor Commissioner, Adelphino Vasquez, has been meeting with both the Belize Communication Workers Union (BCWU) and the management of the Belize Telecommunications Limited (BTL), but at press time today relations between the parties remain in stalemate, as the BCWU reasserted its intent to move ahead with its strike in just 10 days.
BCWU president, Paul Perriott, said that the union met with Vasquez on Friday, but the union has still had no discussions with management to try to resolve the dispute over the termination of three workers.
For almost two weeks BTL workers supporting the union have been on a “go slow” and “work to rule,” which means those workers object to additional duties and work outside their normal office hours.
The Minister of Labor, Hon. Francis Fonseca, wrote the union last Tuesday acknowledging that he has received their notice of industrial action, dated February 2, 2007.
The notice, the union says, is for a strike to take effect in 21 days after the notice, but the Minister told the union that the parties need to engage in “good faith discussions” to resolve the conflict.
He also asked the union to define the trade dispute more clearly, which the BCWU did via a letter dated today, February 12. That letter chronicles the development of the dispute, beginning in late December, when, it appears relations among some BTL employees in a certain section of BTL went sour.
Vasquez would only tell us today that he has met with both parties and will report his findings to his Minister – Hon. Fonseca, who had asked him to intervene.
The BCWU said last week that it intends to join the medical staff of the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital on February 17 in their public protest against Government’s decision to buy out 100% of Universal Health Services (UHS) and integrate Universal into the public health care system.
They contend that the public resources which Government will surrender in the deal should, instead, be channeled directly into the public sector rather than being used to bail out a private company.
Government says that since it guaranteed the UHS loan to the Belize Bank, which now stands at over $30 million, it is legally bound to settle the debt, but at the same time, officials say that the integration would accelerate Government’s plan to implement a reform of the health sector.
UHS workers with whom we’ve spoken have different points of view on the matter, and most tell us that they would prefer for Government to divest some of those shares to private individuals rather than retain 10% ownership.