The saga over the jobs of 100 security officers at the Fort Street Tourism Village took a disturbing turn today, when six employees of Fort Point Security Services learned they had been fired, they claim for no good reason whatsoever.
The timing of the firings is significant. They actually began last Friday, when one of the most vocal officers, 2-year veteran John Campos, was handed his termination letter at the end of the workday, 5:30 p.m. on Friday, reportedly after coming off a ship in the harbor.
Another five workers, including at least one female, received their letters today. The offices of Fort Point were closed today, and even though we called the office, we could not reach anyone there for comment.
At about 2:00 on Tuesday afternoon, April 15, 25 security guards of the Fort Street Tourism Village had staged a walkout at the Fort Point office, on Eyre Street, after receiving paychecks they felt were well below normal expectations.
Most workers saw a cut of between 40 and 50% in their pay, which used to average out upwards of $500 every 2 weeks.
We are told this has been the case for the last six weeks – the exact tenure of Fort Point’s head of security, Jose Carmen Zetina, who had previously held the posts of Commissioner of Police, Director of Immigration and Nationality and head of security at the Kolbe Foundation Correctional Facility at Hattieville, exactly in that order.
Last Wednesday morning, striking workers staged a peaceful protest in front of the Fort Point offices, merely hundreds of feet from the tourism village itself.
Director of Operations for the Village, James Nisbet, had told Amandala on Tuesday that his operational security has not been breached, other officers having taken up the slack from those on the protest line.
But on Wednesday, group leaders Gilford Magdaleno and Campos showed us a list of signatures representing 64, later 67, security officers in solidarity with the walkout, of a total of 104 officers employed by Fort Point. We understand that termination letters have been prepared for all 67 of them.
The striking men and women have retained the assistance of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize and Public Service Union president, Jackie Willoughby, who was in negotiations with Zetina and the Labour Department as of Wednesday evening.
A combative Zetina passionately defended the controversial payment arrangements to the media last week, saying that it was a result of an altered pay cycle ordered by the local banks with which Fort Point does business. According to the new cycle, the payroll must go to the bank by the 10th of the month for pay cycle 1st-15th, and by the 28th for cycle 16th-31st. Plans are being made to route pay through one bank. Zetina has further announced that a $100 “advance loan” will be offered to all officers to help meet their more urgent expenses, and repayable in installments beginning with the April 30 pay cycle. According to Zetina, before his arrival at Fort Point Security, cheques were taking more than 48 hours to clear because of late payroll arrivals and other hiccups in communication between Fort Point and the major banks.
Guards work a 12-hour schedule in the shift system, receiving $50.00 a day, or $4.17 an hour. An average workweek is 6 days, though it can be less or more depending on the tourism village’s security needs, Zetina told us.
Hours worked from the 11th to the 15th of the month, in the new pay cycle, would be rolled over to the next pay cycle, with the same going for hours worked from the 28th to the 31st.
According to Zetina, he suggested, and management approved, the new scheme, and employees were summarily informed. However, the guards say management never informed them of the new arrangements, and characterized Zetina as being dictatorial in his approach. Magdaleno and Campos called for the arrangements to be put in writing, and their pay updated. The officers denied all of Zetina’s charges and said he was conspiring to fire the lot of them, a charge made apparently true today.
Zetina, for his part, told us he had reports of guards sleeping on the job, skipping work and expecting the same rate of pay, and even individual walkouts after one or two days on the job. He added cryptically that “vested interests within the tourist village” are behind the guards’ protests, and told recalcitrant workers that with regard to the new arrangements, they could “take it or leave it.”
The guards had returned to work after a temporary agreement was brokered by the Labour Department, represented by Acting Deputy Labor Commissioner Hertha Gentle, and PSU’s Jackie Willoughby. The Department said it would investigate the reports of both management and employees, and broker a more permanent solution.
Willoughby had said she wanted to ensure that no workers would be fired, that pay schemes would be regularized, and that the complicated shift system be streamlined, but the firings indicate that Zetina and Fort Street boss Mike Feinstein broke the first promise this weekend.
Gentle, speaking with Amandala this evening, said the Department’s hands were tied with regards to the situation, as according to Section 40 (1) of the Labour Act (Cap. 297, Laws of Belize 2000), employers can terminate workers with appropriate notice and they don’t have to state a cause.
The fact that the management agreed not to fire the workers, she says, does not factor into things. She added that most security service companies have similar cutoff dates for payroll, though we were not able to check this with other security companies by press time. As for the pay situation, the workers were supposed to have been paid weekly, befitting their type of work, but that the management of Fort Point, under a previous manager, had consulted with the workers and made the switch to 15th and ending payments, as explained by Zetina last week. She said the department’s findings on the pay situation have been forwarded to Fort Point, with “stipulations” on what the employers should do, contravention of which can land them in court.
Willoughby, also speaking with us this evening, says that the workers should not have been terminated per the agreement reached on Thursday. They meet with the Labour Department tomorrow.
She said that Minister of Labour, Hon. Gabriel Martinez, is being kept abreast of the situation, and she expects that the government will make changes to the law, removing some of the cumbersome structures that lead to situations like that at Fort Point.
Gentle concluded our interview today saying that workers need to start paying closer attention to the Labour Laws and protecting themselves by getting the most current information on Belize’s workplace laws.