25 Employees Terminated from Belmopan City Council

The Belmopan City Council, led by Mayor Sharon Palacio, has terminated the services of twenty-five CitCo employees.  Those individuals, all members of the Christian Workers Union, were served notice at the end of June.  It’s reportedly part of a reengineering exercise being undertaken by the municipal government. However, the C.W.U. charges that City Hall is not following due process where labor laws are concerned.  It’s a similar situation that took place in San Pedro when a new town council took office.  Several persons were summarily relieved of their duties at Town Hall and compensation for their service became a subsequent issue.  In this case, Hyde says that they are in communication with the Labor Commissioner and the Belmopan City Council to see if the matter can be resolved.

Evan ‘Mose’ Hyde

Evan ‘Mose’ Hyde, President, C.W.U.

“At the end of last week, twenty-five members of the Belmopan City council were given their walking papers.  The situation there is that we have sent a letter to the Belmopan City Council and to the Labor Commissioner saying that we feel ambushed and we believe that this process has not been handled according to labor law requirements.  We have been in contact with the Belmopan City Council and the mayor, she has indicated to us that they intend to do reengineering.  We were told we would get a reengineering plan and so we went to Belmopan on June twenty-third when we were supposed to get a reengineering plan.  We were told that the reengineering plan was not ready as yet but that it would be ready around the latter part of July, early August and so we had a subsequent meeting with our members to tell them, “Listen, reengineering is a fancy word to say that people will be let go.”  We, as the union, are in a position where we have said on multiple occasions to the Belmopan City Council and to the mayor to say, “Listen, please acquaint yourself with the labor laws as it relates to redundancy because there are specific procedures that have to be done and we will have to hold you accountable to that.”  We assured our members in this meeting on June twenty-third, that we met with the Belmopan City Council that there was going to be a plan presented to us and, as according to law, we were going to have an opportunity to respond and to see if our efforts can result in a mitigation of the negative impact of termination.”