BELIZE CITY, Fri. Mar. 6, 2020– On the first work day of the week, a 15-member gang of stevedores at the Port of Belize Limited (PBL) walked away from the pier head, refusing to off-load a container ship. That was the beginning of what would turn out to be a week of protest at the PBL worksite. The stevedores were supported by the PBL office staff, who have been working without a Collective Bargaining Agreement for years.
Before the day was over, the stevedores and the Christian Workers Union (CWU) were up in arms against the PBL management, which was forced to the bargaining table.
On Wednesday, the state entered the picture when CWU And PBL held discussions with Minister of State in the Ministry of Labor, Dr. Carla Barnett.
Today, Friday, both sides, along with the Minister of Labor, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) which effectively normalized relations, and work at the Port of Belize is now expected to continue while the union and management go about the business of settling their differences.
Yesterday, Thursday, CWU had served PBL with the requisite 21-day notice of industrial action.
One of the principal concerns of the stevedores is the fact that BSI/ASR has been conducting experiments and exploring the possibility of moving its sugar overland through the port at Big Creek. If that is done, it would have a devastating effect on the earnings of stevedores.
Therefore, that question figures prominently in the issue of the stevedores, who will be out of pocket as much as two million dollars per annum, according to their union’s estimate.
Evan “Mose” Hyde, the CWU president, addressed the issues facing his members and told the media, ”What PBL has done to us is put our members through twenty four hours of hell, and…we explained to the Minister what Port has done by participating in a process where we came to our members and we tell them that this is the way we will go forward.
“Our members accepted that process. We cannot give any sense to those people out there whether they are business, shipping agencies, whoever they are —we cannot give them any sense that this situation has moved from crisis stage. This situation remains in crisis stage and we have to label it as that because these people who have been hounding for this situation to be resolved must know that they cannot go quiet, they cannot go into the dark and pretend as if though if something goes wrong, if stevedores are forced because of lack of cooperation over the next twenty days, because we sent in our letter to indicate that we would go on strike in twenty one days.”
Hyde went on to state, “We have lost a day. We are down to twenty days. We need the stakeholders, we need everybody to understand that do not, do not think that stevedores are going around in circles. Who is going in circle? PBL might be going in circle but not stevedores. We have a straight line, that is we have to create a security package in the event, which we believe is high, likely to the point that we are almost certain that will happen, that is the movement of sugar to Big Creek.
“On the part of our members over there in the shed, mechanic shop, the staff, we have certain dates where we can get certain things from PBL. If those things are not done, we want to say again to the stakeholders, we will end up right here again to square one. We have said that to the Minister”.
“And if we notice that when we get to these meetings that there is not a genuine sense from the party of the other side is committed to creating the agreements that remedy the situation, we are going to say to Belize and to all the stakeholders, we have no choice, we have lost any belief that we are dealing with a genuine, with any level, with any quantity, with a molecule of sincerity on the other side of that table,” Hyde added.
Port of Belize CEO, Arturo “Tux” Vasquez, told the media, “We lost a week and hopefully we are back to normal now.” Vasquez was asked, “Have the Port customers been affected in the last few day when ships had to return without being offloaded?
Vasquez replied, “Not only our customers; financially, there is a lot of loss there. But yeah, of course, that has affected everything: the business community — everything. From what we understand now, there are some ships that were coming, that decided not to come over the weekend, and everything is simply because we have not been able to give any guarantees as to where we are.
“It is so unfortunate because the priority here really is to getting the Port back up and running, and I believe that these things should be considered and dealt with properly. If we are to address a situation like that, then we need to understand exactly how we will address that situation.”
“There is no way I am committing the Port to say we are 100% responsible. We have to speak to BSI, we may have to speak to government, we may have to speak to a number of parties, but at this point, all we are saying is we are agreeing to sit at the table and let’s see if and when this happens, how would be the best way to address it. That is what we are doing right now.” Vasquez said.
Feature photo: (l-r) Arturo “Tux” Vasquez, Port of Belize CEO and Evan Mose Hyde, President Christian Workers Union