Photo: CWU officials report on update at the waterfront
Wary and resilient, CWU stevedores ponder their next move
BELIZE CITY, Wed. May 24, 2023
Stevedores employed by the Port of Belize Ltd. (PBL) will shortly decide their next move regarding the refusal of PBL to comply with the January 2022 oral ruling of the Essential Services Arbitration Tribunal (ESAT) which instructs the company to negotiate a redundancy payment to be given to the workers to compensate for present and future income they have lost as a result of the transfer of bulk-sugar loading operations to the Port of Big Creek. This was the announcement made by the Christian Workers Union (CWU), the stevedores’ bargaining agent, on Wednesday, May 24, at a press conference at their Dean Street secretariat in Belize City.
Asked whether a strike is on the table, Evan “Mose” Hyde, immediate past CWU president and now special advisor on the Union’s Executive Board, indicated that the options available to stevedores are limited. He reiterated that they still prefer that PBL would sit down to negotiate a fair and just compensation.
Hyde shared that they have no other option now than to go to their membership so that they can give “a consensus marching order.” He remarked that their commitment to sit around a table and to negotiate “has been treated with great disdain; has been treated with great disrespect.”
While Hyde did not reveal much after the parties’ last meeting on May 11 in the presence of Ministry of Labour officials, he did say that timelines were set. This past Wednesday, he revealed that the Ministry of Labour ordered PBL to submit a counterproposal to the CWU by Monday, May 22, but the Ashcroft-affiliated company did not comply.
In outlining what actually transpired, Hyde said that it was PBL who called them to the May 11 meeting, and Labour officials simply showed up. He affirmed that PBL in their invitation letter indicated that, notwithstanding their positions on the issues, “they were going to comply with the ESAT ruling;” but then, at the meeting, Hyde says, “PBL changed their position”. Describing what happened after the sudden and unexpected change in PBL’s position, Hyde said, “we spent most of that morning trying to get a clarification from them, ‘Well, what’s going on here?’ To be honest with you, we felt like we were played for a fool.” He explained that that was the reason that they kept going in and out of the room, because they had to decide whether they would even stay in the meeting.
According to Hyde, when Monday, May 22 came around, all PBL sent was a repeat of their position, and the Ministry of Labour responded by stating that they needed to comply with the directive given. That was followed later in the week with a PBL letter that Hyde describes as “aggressive” and in which they simply outlined their hardline position that “this was not going to happen.” Further, Hyde says that PBL challenged the Ministry of Labour about being biased. Notably, PBL also sent a complaint letter to the Labour Commissioner accusing them of having covert meetings with the Union following a meeting with the Belize Port Authority, which had called Union officials for an explanation of how the container gangs work. Labour officials also participated in that meeting.
Given the way things have unfolded thus far, Hyde says it is clear to them that PBL will not comply with the ESAT ruling, and although Ministry of Labour officials are now engaged, “one, it doesn’t appear that PBL feels that the Ministry of Labour has any ability or any interest to bring any pressure on them; and, it doesn’t appear at this point in time that they [Ministry of Labour] are going to back that directive that they gave in that meeting.”
As to the suggestion from both the Minister of Labour and Minister of Logistics that the matter of enforcement must be addressed in court, Hyde queried, “Then, why do we have the Essential Services Tribunal?” Hyde belaboured the fact that the tribunal is set up in such a way that its ruling is final. He recorded that if the Ministry is not going to stand behind the tribunal, then they have wasted all their time and “the paper that you have written the whole legislation to have an Essential Services Tribunal.” He further stated, “In fact, truth be told, we find it insulting to be told ‘if you want that to be enforced you go to court.’ You’re talking here about telling working class people to find the resources to go challenge an apparatus that is as resourced as PBL – a conglomerate that not even the Government of Belize with all its resources has been able to muster any significant [wins] against. And you will tell them ‘goh da Court.’ Really and truly, eena plain talking, what you are telling them to do is to ‘go to hell and leave you alone.’”
Hyde says that they have met with representatives of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry and with the Opposition to explain in detail what is happening at the waterfront.
For his part, Marlon Middleton, the Chief Union Representative for stevedores, questioned how many times they must come to the media, and emphasized that the government has the power to step in. He added that the Government has nationalized Boledo but does not want to nationalize the port. Asked about that prospect, Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde on Wednesday said that returning the port to the people of Belize should be seriously considered, since nothing has been done to improve the facilities. He said, “… and every time you hear about the port, all you hear about is discord and divisiveness and animosity. At some point in time we’re going to have to figure out what it is we are about, because my sense is that those owners at the port – whether it is a receivership or whether it’s an ownership – those persons consider the stevedores to be mere chattels. A self-respecting government cannot subscribe to that thought, because how we treat the stevedores, how we allow the stevedores to be treated, is a reflection of what we think we are, and who we are, and how we want to be treated in this global age of free trade. So, we have to do more. We have to get it right. What more we have to do, we’ll have to figure that out; and if it has to be that we have to take over the port, then we should, because we have been going at it for way too long!”