C.W.U. Tells G.O.B., “Run di Suga Money!”

Whitfield Dennison

The Christian Workers Union has made it abundantly clear that while the four hundred thousand dollar payment pending for stevedores that was frozen by the High Court is welcomed, it is more focused on the collecting monies that were lost when sugar operations were moved from P.B.L. to Big Creek in 2020.

Whitfield Dennison, Christian Workers Union

“This dispute with this sugar money is clear to be understood with both partners.  We sat over it several times, we’ve come to [the fact that] they have to set a tribunal to make a decision, the tribunal is the last and final decision that you could make.  The decision that was made by the tribunal, they still can’t make a decision as to what to get.  They make a decision to go back and negotiate what is the quantum that we need to discuss the payment.  That’s what we’re waiting for.  We’re not waiting for no four hundred and seventy-three thousand dollars that have already been given to us.  That gone eena di garbage box.  That gone eena di garbage box, already given to us to go back to work.  We come with that with some conditions that we honored the conditions that they gave us that one point five [million dollars] under.  The year passed, they gave us one year to go on that and we stick to our rules.  So they have to understand, we want our sugar redundancy money.”

Leonora Flowers

Leonora Flowers, President, Christian Workers Union

“As we have said, this Ashcroft and Belize relations is a self-inflicted one by the Government of Belize, both governments from time to time and we recognize that.  And the people who have suffered the most are the workers, the stevedores, our members.  Today, we are here to say that we are focused one hundred percent on ensuring that our members, our stevedores get what is rightly theirs.  Government, at the moment, all the releases are saying that the stevedores  are going to get the four hundred and seventy-three thousand dollars that sits under the injunction.  That’s welcoming for some of those stevedores who have not been paid, based on the March sixth agreement.  But that is nothing to play with because that is not the sugar money that we’ve been discussing over the years and that is what we want to bring one hundred percent focus on.”