Labour commissioner says union agreed to mediation
Still on the dispute, on Wednesday, the Belize Medical and Dental Union asked Senator Goldwin Hulse to serve as facilitator to assist them to navigate through the next process of arbitration with the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital Board. News Five spoke today to the Labour Commissioner, Ivan Williams, about this request. According to Williams, this is against the law since “facilitation happens before the issue is reported to the minister and must go through the settlement of dispute process under the essential services act Chapter 298”. Williams says, furthermore, the parties have agreed to attempt the mediation process once again.
Voice of: Ivan Williams, Labour Commission (Via Phone)
“Yesterday I wrote the union asking for a recommencement of the negotiation process. I did receive a letter from the union asking for a facilitation process. Now, we are all operating under the Settlement of Dispute in Essential Services Act chapter 298 and it states to the issue of the minister appointing a mediator to resolve a dispute and failing that them we go to arbitration. So operating under that law, we have a system of mediation and when mediation fails, we go to arbitration. There is nothing in there that speaks about facilitation so I was not clear by what the union mean by requesting facilitation. And so when I inquired, I was told that they are hoping that Senator Godwin Hulse could be a facilitator between the parties to resolve the dispute. I want to make it clear that facilitation in my view, is another process; different from mediation meaning that facilitation is something where two people have a problem, they agree on a gentlemen’s agreement to get a third party to come in. so clearly that is outside of the scope of the law.”
Duane Moody
“Where is the battle between the doctors and the K.H.M.H. Board at this point in time?”
Ivan Williams
“We are hoping to try the mediation process and with discussion with both parties, they have agreed to the mediation process; to recommence mediation. The purpose of mediation is to negotiate what your points are and hopefully there can be compromise. And that’s the whole spirit of mediation because we all should be thinking about the interest of the people that we serve. In other words, the provision of services is the most critical issue that we should be focusing on and if we feel that there are some problems in terms of the institution, then we should jointly try to put in place structures and systems that will solve whatever differences that we have at the work place.”
Williams also says that the union has verbally agreed to return to the table this coming Monday.
