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Right to the Point: “The grass are my clients…”

OpinionRight to the Point: “The grass are my clients…”

“The UDP will for its part begin now a sustained campaign of civil disobedience.”

— Dean Barrow, UDP Leader, April 17th, 2005!

As an attorney I get to have some rather interesting and privileged experiences because clients let me into their life and trust in me and confide in me, and so I get to be a part of one chapter of their life. I believe that when a person needs an attorney it is because they really need help or are dealing with a situation they don’t feel they can manage on their own. Many people can find themselves in said situation, which at times becomes a desperate situation and if the right help is not found the consequences can be life changing and devastating. For example many people ignorant as to the legal system often go to court and plead guilty to what they are told and they believe are really minor charges, and to their lament and shock are surprised that instead of getting a fine, they are incarcerated. I honestly advise people that if you cannot cope with confinement, even for a seemingly minor offence … do NOT plead guilty before finding out what the penalty can be…. Because many will not be just a fine.

This week’s saga of the workers of Belize Maintenance Limited (BML) showed me a lot, taught me a lot and humbled me even lots more. Interestingly they were involved in some form of civil disobedience, in keeping in line with the 2005 mandate of the very political party that now forms the government. Ironic how in 2005 it was okay for the UDP to call for sustained civil disobedience but in 2014 they cannot countenance same being done against them!

Standing up for their jobs

I had no knowledge of the impromptu protest held Monday in front of City Hall, so when a friend and activist called me to go out and help represent these workers I did not just jump and go, because I could not really believe that so many people were in lock-down for what he told me took place. The story was too incredible, so it was until other BML workers called on me and visited me that I could appreciate the magnitude of what took place and I therefore proceeded to the Queen Street Police Station.

I was furnished with a list of all the workers hired by BML and their manager tried to highlight the names of those who they thought were in lock-down, because it all happened so fast that they could not tell for sure who all were there. But now I know each by name and can say with certainty that it was forty-one (41) workers, including one supervisor and their recently appointed employee representative.

There were twenty-two (22) women and nineteen (19) men, all of whom had one thing in common: they would be temporarily laid off because the company could not afford to pay them. And the reason the company could not afford to pay them was simply because the company could not be paid by the Belize City Council, which had been in arrears for the past nineteen (19) weeks and there was no indication of a sit down to dialogue on a payment plan.

Not able to afford to lose their jobs which pays them some $169.00 weekly, the men and women, ranging from ages twenty-six (26) to sixty-two (62), vented their frustration. But sadly, some two, unknown to the others, decided to do their mischief and stage their own protest by throwing garbage that had recently been collected. This was not the doing of the masses but surely they were locked down for it.

The elephants are fighting

The truth be told, the true circumstances that brought the pressure on these workers and pushed them over the edge is beyond their control and surely but sadly, they do not have a say in what is happening. Borrowing the old and worn cliché, I best describe it by saying that “the elephants are fighting so the grass is being trampled.” My clients, the BML workers, are the grass being trampled upon because they are at the bottom of the “totem pole” or power structure, they are voiceless as to what has been the decisions being made between City Hall and BML’s management. They are just the employees… the ones who walk the streets and collect our litter…. Yet they were being charged with littering … hmmm, what irony.

They don’t want to hear all the political posturing of City Hall nor all the hard time of BML; all they want is that $169.00 weekly so they can see how they will pay their utility bills, buy food, pay rent and send their kids to school on that minimum of minimum wage.

The majority are not the most savvy, the most academically inclined and qualified, nor the most eloquent, but they are humans endowed with all the rights like anyone else… no different, not less important. We the residents of the city owe them much gratitude and should rally behind them so that the fight of the elephants does not trample them to death.

Now some cold-hearted people with their own political motives tried to blur the lines between these workers’ right to work and the ever political issue of the privatization of the sanitization department at CitCo over a decade ago. Let me say this, that this is one issue that needs to be discussed and those contracts issued under that regime need to be addressed, even in a court of law if they wish…. But the workers ARE NOT the ones responsible, nor the ones to have to pay the price.

I say no government wants to truly address the issue of these type of contracts by public bodies using tax-payers’ money because none wants to be held accountable. I have said over the years we need to enact something similar to what the British enacted in the 1970’s when Parliament passed the Unfair Contract Terms Act,” which deals with the terms of contracts to avoid their being onerous clauses, excluded liability and generally “unreasonable” terms. I would tweak it to include special provisions for public bodies entering into contracts on our behalf. For example, governments over the years have gotten into some really damaging contracts that are not in the public’s interest but we got to honor them. The Chalillo Dam contract was such; several of the Ashcroft contacts are the same; and this continues under the present government. Only the players are changing, but the game is the same.

However as the elephants fight over the enforcement of the contract and if there will be an eventual renewal, the workers – all 170 of them, will ultimately pay the price!

Mass protest averted!

The government, through no other than the Prime Minister, intervened it seems without the request from either side – the workers, the BML management or City Hall. I personally believe it was a strategic and timely intervention because there was no letting off from either side. The Mayor was adamant the workers had to be punished and he would not meet with their bosses to discuss payments; while employer and employees were uniting to stage a two-day protest that has now been averted.

The workers’ mood had already been set on Tuesday outside the Magistrate’s Court when Mayor Bradley arriving in a Council vehicle entered the Magistrate’s Court on his private business as an attorney on working time of the Council, and the workers demanded he speak with them. Of course he refused and stood his ground on the issue of their littering ticket, which carried a fine of $500.00. Here is what Mayor Bradley had to say Tuesday 5th August, 2014:

Darrell Bradley, Mayor, City Hall:

“As a matter of policy and politics, I put a policy in relation to this. I have made a policy at City Council that when a person is issued a ticket that’s a ticket that is issued by our staff for an infraction. No political person gets involved with that. When we have parking tickets that are issued, no councilor can get involved in that, just like how the police process is there, that’s an administration function. If a person has been ticketed, I saw the reels in terms of the trash that was laid out there. Those tickets have been issued, there is a certain process that deals with that and if they think that ticket was unfairly issued then they should deal with that.” Here is what he had to say the following day, Wednesday August 6, 2014 after the Prime Minister intervened: Darrell Bradley – Mayor, City Hall – “The position is after reflecting a lot on this matter, I think that the workers ought not to be victims in these circumstances. I think that Audrey Matura said something yesterday on the news which spoke to me. She said that when elephants fight it’s often times that they trample on grass. I thought that was not a nice way to describe people being trampled on, and when I saw the images last night on the news of people being incarcerated. I’m a human being and those things speak to me as a human being and I think that in retrospect things could have been different in the entire circumstance and we took a decision to withdraw as it related to that aspect of it that has to do with the City Council, which is the issuance of the littering fines, which are these 500 dollar tickets. All of that will be withdrawn.”

It is in the power of the Council to determine how it will deal with these statutory violations and if the ticketed person says he will challenge it and states the grounds, then a decision can be made. Clearly in this case before we could even officially write in to challenge the tickets, the Mayor re-considered. I am truly thankful for this and honestly wish that from the start, before I was even called out… that cooler heads would have prevailed!

Penner sets the bar!

After all is said and done, there is a disturbing aspect of this whole saga that bothers me. That aspect has to do with how a politician can instruct a senior police officer whether to institute or withdraw charges…that really is the role of the DPP in whose name all prosecutions are instituted. This makes me now appreciate why Penner has not one day been issued a ticket, much less a charge sheet. Hmmmm…I guess the Penner situation has shown us that the Police Department is not allowed to do their work without political interference. But the standard that has developed is that if Penner can get away with being charged, so should anyone who is suspected of offences of same magnitude and below.

I believe that police have a discretion to exercise when dealing with a complaint and can decide to investigate any matter and proceed to charge if there is sufficient evidence. I also know the prosecution of those charges rests in the hand of the Director of Public Prosecutions, whose duty is two-fold: one, to be fair in its prosecution of an accused and to determine if the public interest is served by pursuing a matter. I opine that at the end of the day the prosecution should conclude that it does not serve the public interest to even charge these workers, and that is why the police often need to communicate with the office of the DPP to get guidance. To do so is lawful. Here is how we know who called the shots:

“There were some arraignments of workers on charges having to do with illegal assembly that had already taken place by the time I intervened with Mr. Broaster this morning. There were others to be arraigned today, as a consequence of our discussion and agreement those were not proceeded with…so the assurance is that those charges will not now be lodged and so they don’t have to worry. With respect to the first 22, the police will withdraw those charges, will indicate to the court it will not proceed with any prosecution of those charges.” – P.M. Dean Barrow August 6, 2014

What is bothering is that the Prime Minister, who has no authority over the Police, could call Sr. Supt. Broaster and make these charges go away. Arraigned or not, what makes a person charged is not the lodging of the matter at the Court Office, but the issuing of the charge sheet which all 41 workers have received. So I call on the Police to quash those charge sheets.

God bless Belize!

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