B.S.I. comments on labor dispute

Belize Sugar Industries has responded to statements made by the Belize Workers Union during a labor dispute last week. The tension, which culminated in a brief strike by day-shift workers, stemmed from an incident on March 5th which sparked the one day suspension of Vice Chairman of the Union Thomas Chan. According to the Union, Chan was defending one of the workers and got into a heated argument with one of the managers. The Union says they later apologized for the exchange of words and claimed his suspension violated International Labor Conventions since Chan was not acting as an employee of B.S.I. but as a union representative. B.S.I. says they are taking the incident very seriously and claim that during the March 5th meeting Chan rose from his chair, shook his finger at Eduardo Zetina, the Manager of Research and Cane Farmer Relations, and said quote “You better watch your head”. Zetina then terminated the meeting. B.S.I. says they consider this threat a criminal act and that it is grounds for dismissal under the Labor Act. B.S.I. says so far Chan has offered no apology and they will attempt to work with the B.W.U. to resolve the present dispute. However, they say the fact that Chan was acting as a union official is no defense and that union officials cannot be considered immune from disciplinary measures simple because they are union officials.