The unionized workers at the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in Belmopan expressed their discontent with a redundancy exercise undertaken by the administration which saw the termination of three of their co-workers by staging a walkout today. A meeting between the Labor Department and Christian Workers Union is scheduled for tomorrow

BELMOPAN, Thurs. Sept. 1, 2022

Every hour today, for 30 seconds, the unionized workers at the Belmopan branch of the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) have been thumping on their desks as a show of protest against the termination of the employment of three of their colleagues which was finalized yesterday. This morning, as an added show of dissatisfaction with the handling of the redundancy exercise which resulted in the termination of the workers, the unionized workers at the DFC staged a walkout – lining up outside the office on the side of the road and singing the union songs.

Tomorrow, a meeting is scheduled between the Christian Workers Union (CWU) and the Labor Department, and representatives from the DFC will likely also be in attendance to attempt to address the issues raised—chief of which, says CWU rep for the DFC Belmopan branch, Pablo Cawich, is the DFC’s lack of adherence to the protocol laid out in the Labor Act in the way they carried out the terminations.

“We informed them that in our view they were not implementing the exercise in accordance to the Labor Act, and yesterday three of our members were issued their redundancy letters, officially terminating them as of yesterday. We at the CWU had informed them that due to their lack of adherence to the Act, we were not accepting the notices, and hence the employees had not been terminated,” Cawich said.

But those employees were reportedly escorted from the DFC office in Belmopan, and according to the redundancy letters issued to them, are without a job at this time. Cawich said that in this case the employees were not treated fairly.

“We have to stand beside our brothers and sisters to ensure that fairness and process is always adhered to,” he emphasized. He went on to describe what he called the union members’ “dissatisfaction exercise”. “Every hour for 30 seconds, we bang our tables, not to damage them but just to express our dissatisfaction with the circumstances that we are in,” Cawich explained.