Cayo Branch of the B.N.T.U. is Defiant and Fired Up for Strike

The Belize National Teachers’ Union continues its Stand Up For Belize Campaign in light of the planned strike this coming Monday. Today the union leadership met with the San Ignacio Branch. These are special circumstances and the meetings are doubling as forums for reports from Union president Luke Palacio on the ongoing back-and-forth with the Government of Belize. After meeting with the Belmopan Branch on Monday, it was the turn of the San Ignacio Branch to gather at the Octavia Waight Centre Convention Hall this afternoon. Interestingly, on the issue of the planned strike action coming at the start of next week, the hundreds of educators present were defiant, prodding their own leadership to go further. The union had only called for its member teachers to absent themselves from school next week Monday. Branch President Manuel Medina and Palacio addressed that demand following the meeting’s conclusion.

Manuel Medina

Manuel Medina, Branch President, B.N.T.U. San Ignacio

“This is our first quarterly meeting for the year. And we normally have two for the year. Unfortunately because of the atmosphere right now, things that are happening, this meeting was looked at as though we were planning things other than our quarterly meeting. And there was mixed signals, mixed messages going around, but all of that we managed to overcome.”

Luke Palacio

Luke Palacio, National President, B.N.T.U.

“Our members here in San Ignacio today were very vocal about their position and they are saying that they don’t believe that they want the strike action to be only for one day. We want to take back all these recommendations to our council because we intend to have a council meeting before the week is out and all of those matters will be discussed. But we need to also point out, very importantly, that we cannot go out there today and say that we will be on strike for any period of time simply because we don’t want for those that will try and say okay we will see how long that they can hold out or they have given us an indication and we don’t need to worry. This is what we are saying to our members. Every day we will update them as to what the situation is like and how we proceed.”

For now, the scheduled quarterly regional meetings continue; Benque Viejo Branch is to meet on Wednesday. The Council of Management’s meeting later this week, Palacio said, will not affect the regional meetings as the elected representatives from all branches will be present.