JUNT Says It Won’t Be Fooled by G.O.B. Again

Dean Flowers

And while it may be interpreted as a kumbaya session, P.S.U. President Dean Flowers, who spoke on behalf of the Joint Unions’ Negotiating Team, says that they won’t be fooled again by G.O.B. Flowers references the negotiations of 2021, which ended with the government freezing their increments and cutting their salaries by ten percent. He says that the ministers presented the economic realities during today’s meeting. However, if the unions have to resort to hard talks, then they will do so.

Dean Flowers, President, Public Service Union

“I want to commend the responses that we received, I want to commend the attitude that was displayed, I want to commend the humility that was displayed by the government side because it shows that their approach this time around is not a dictatorial approach, because we’ve said it, we learnt in 2021 we were dictated to. This time around, we are going to have a dialogue and we are going to meet in the middle as best as possible before we move forward on these issues. We agreed that going forward we would have to agree on either continuing discussing the issues with a view of agreeing or if it is that we enter into some form of negotiations. One of the things that we will not allow is for another empty government commitment to be imposed on us. And I take you back to May twelfth, 2021 when the prime minister read those fifteen government commitments to the union, which they did not honour. We spoke about that today as well. And like I said, you live each day and you learn from your mistakes and you learn from these experiences so that you are better prepared when you are confronted in these positions. And so I am able to say with confidence, where these three matters are concerned, we will reach an agreement with the government and none of them will be imposed on us in the manner in which government wants because I think public officers have now come to the realisation that they must stand by and support their union if it is that they intend to get what is due to them in a fair manner, because we don’t want to put an unfair, unjust burden on the Belizean public. One year after, a whole lot has changed and we look forward to continuing these dialogues and come April first, who knows, we might be here signing a CBA and negotiating a framework for a new one as well as moving forward where our pension, public sector reform is concerned and the issue of increments, hopefully we could put this behind as well.”