All strikes called off; unions ponder future

For the first time in two weeks, things were back to normal at the Esquivel Telecom Centre on St. Thomas Street as employees who claimed they had been locked out, returned to their workstations. It is not clear under what arrangement the B.T.L. workers were allowed back into the company, as suspicion lingers over how several key links were sabotaged last month, leaving the country cut off from the rest of the world, not to mention itself. With the B.T.L. employees now back at work, their “walk out” has been called off and their industrial action against their employer halted. Other unions that were in solidarity with the Belize Communication Workers Union have also called off their protest actions. The Public Service Union announced this past weekend that it had suspended its indefinite strike, but kept a “work to rule” in place until further notice. The teachers strike was also called off and educators who had been absent from the classroom returned to their posts on Tuesday. According to B.N.T.U. President Anthony Fuentes, a tough lesson from the past was among the primary reasons why teachers were asked to return to the classroom today. The teachers’ experience when they went on strike under the Esquivel Administration was that their salaries were docked, not only for school days away from the job, but also for the weekends. Fearing a similar situation could occur, Fuentes said B.N.T.U.’s council of management opted to suspend the strike and seek legal advice on how to proceed. As for the umbrella National Trade Union Congress of Belize, that body is meeting tonight with its members, presumably to assess the call for a nationwide strike. General Secretary George Frazer, who sent out a letter last month calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister and his government, appears to have now come under attack and some of the dissention seems to be coming from within his own ranks. When contacted by News Five today, Frazer declined an interview saying that he was not making any public statements because people, even union members, are accusing him of “selling out” to the very people whose heads he was calling for. Frazer emphasised that his decades of militancy in the trade union movement have been for love of country and prefers not to lend any credence to what he called “mischief makers” out to sully his character.