BELIZE CITY, Mon. May 10, 2021– On Thursday, while the Joint Unions continued their strike actions across the country, a new movement, which attacks the position of the unions, took form.

The Union for Development, Advancement, and Prosperity (UDAP) was formed by well-known activist Philip “Fawda Church” Henry, who claims that the purpose of the union is to represent those unemployed persons who seem to have slipped through society’s proverbial cracks. These persons, the “voiceless,” as Henry describes them, are not members of the conventional trade union movement, and many have been out of jobs since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Henry believes that the Joint Unions are being selfish in their opposition to the 10% salary cut at a time when many citizens have suffered a much steeper cut and many more have completely lost their means of income.

He told local media that this new “poor people union” will be more powerful than any of the other unions and said that they started with 50 persons signing up on Thursday, but that he expects, due to the number of calls and requests he has received, to see the size of the union’s membership reach 3,000 to 4,000 persons by this week.

The union’s supporters staged a march from Constitution Park to Battlefield Park and then walked to the Pickstock area, where they officially signed up as members.