Since the change of government last year February, dozens of young women who were hired under the People’s United Party administration to work as school wardens have been given marching orders and replaced, reportedly, with supporters of the United Democratic Party.
The change of government, inevitably, brings changes in the staffing of many politically connected operations, but the termination of Mrs. Hirian Good might have come too late in the game to be acceptable as “a casualty of war.”
Yesterday, Mrs. Good, joined by her husband, retired BDF Captain Charles “Charlie” Good, began protesting her dismissal in front of the Supreme Court steps.
But things did not go as peacefully as the Goods had planned yesterday. A police officer, referred to as one Corporal Berry, saw the two persons protesting in front of the steps of the Supreme Court (there is no court in session. The Supreme Court is on vacation until the September session opens) and intervened.
The policeman broke up the protest, resulting in Charles Good being pushed violently to the ground. He had to be taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital by ambulance, and was treated and released.
Early this morning, however, the family was back in front of the Supreme Court steps, continuing their protest. The Goods vowed that they will maintain their protest until Mrs. Good gets back her job, or gets another job.
This morning, Mrs. Good told Amandala that yesterday, Corporal Berry told them that they had to have a permit to picket in front of the Supreme Court building. He told them that when he came back, he did not want to see them there.
Mrs. Good said that in ten minutes the corporal returned, and when he saw Good, he said to him, “you still deh ya?”
The officer got on his cell phone and spoke to someone, presumably a senior officer, who he told that “Charlie and the woman is still out here.”
When Good asked him to let him (Good) speak to the person to whom he was speaking, he told Good to shut up. According to Mrs. Good, Corporal Berry then accosted her husband, who ended up falling down, hitting his head in the process.
“I promise that that is not going like that,” Mrs. Good said. “This morning he passed here and saw us and started laughing at us,” she added.
On August 3, Mrs. Good said that she got a call from her supervisor, who told her that she had a dismissal letter for her and asked her to come to the office and pick it up.
“When I went to pick up the letter and after I read it, I asked to see the manager, Mr. Dale Anthony. I asked Anthony to give me one good reason why I was getting dismissed,” said Mrs. Good.
According to Mrs. Good, Anthony told her that he did not have a reason, that it was “politics”, because she was employed under the last administration (PUP), so she had to go.
She said that Anthony told her that he could not do anything for her, advising her to see the Minister of Education, Patrick Faber.
“I went behind my husband’s back and spoke to the Minister. He was hanging out in front of Brads Store by the Farmer’s Market,” Mrs. Good said.
When she saw Minister Faber, she told him that she has four children in high school and that her husband is still sick, and asked him to please give her back her job.
Mrs. Good said that the Minister told her that he could not help her.
“In fact, you should have been gone from last year,” she said he told her. “I cannot help you. I have my people to put in,” she said the Minister told her.
“I even told him about the feeding program that I used to do in the school that I did not charge the school or the Ministry of Education for. But he insisted that he could not help me and just walked away and went behind the counter in Brad’s Store,” she told Amandala.
Mrs. Good said that she went to the Labour Department and was told that they could not do anything for her, and that was when the idea of the protest came about.
Mr. Good, for his part, said that he was prepared to let the matter with the corporal rest, but he is under social pressure, both from his wife and others, who tell him that he has to proceed with a criminal case against the officer.
Mr. Good said that he agrees that when a government changes, certain officers change along with that, but the present government is stomping on the people who are poor, marginalized and who are already downtrodden, and that is a shame, he said.
Amandala tried to get a reaction from Hon. Faber, but we were unable to reach him. However, the Minister, in an interview yesterday, told Channel 7 news that school wardens’ positions are positions that are connected with politics, and that five school wardens were fired because they were employed on a temporary basis and were not officially on the payroll, which they were under pressure to regularize.
Mrs. Good, however, had been so exemplary in her job that she had received a letter of commendation from the Ministry of Education – yet she was fired.
In a press release issued today by the Belize National Teachers Union, the union says that it “condemns the firing of Mrs. Hirian Good, School Warden at Trinity Methodist School.”
The release went on to say that: “BNTU condemns any form of political victimization and calls on the leadership of our political parties to respect human and constitutional rights of our workers and people. In this regard, we call on the Government of Belize and in particular, Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education, to reconsider his decision to terminate the employment of Mrs. Hirian Good, and to immediately re-instate her to her post.”