B.T.L. employee says firing was union busting
At this hour, employees of Belize Telecommunications Limited are at the Belize National Teacher’s Union headquarters off Coney Drive planning their next move. Having already instituted “a work to rule” against the company, members of the Belize Communications Workers Union have promised to “go slow” starting next week Tuesday. Both moves are in response to the failure of the Board of Directors to hand over details of the trust arrangement with Sunshine Holdings and its control of twenty percent of B.T.L.’s shares. When the industrial action will end is uncertain, as the situation at the company grew more tense today following the announcement that Service Manager Dale Trujeque had been dismissed from his post by the company. According to Trujeque, he joined the Belize Communication Workers Union on Tuesday, but around ten this morning he was served with his walking papers. This afternoon, Trujeque maintained that his firing is a slap in the face of the unionists.
Dale Trujeque, Fired from B.T.L.
“I am in a new job less than two weeks. You create a new job, put me in there, so obviously you think I may possess some kind of competence and skills to do that new job. But on Tuesday of this week I join the B.C.W.U., the Communication Workers Union. I have that right in the law, I exercised that right.”
“Essentially what is being done is to provoke the union, because when Dean Boyce was there over a year ago, we had good relations with the union under his leadership of the company, so how come now it’s changed? He’s the person essentially in charge. Don’t tell me it’s Keith Arnold or Mr. Tesecum, they are not the people in charge; they are part of the four man committee. Mr. Boyce as far as I am concerned, is the man.”
“Things are being done and they are going contrary to practices that affect the union that were set in place by Mr. Boyce. That will piss off the union. The union is really, disturbed, I can’t speak for them I know they are deeply disturbed by what is going on, what else can I say?”
Trujeque says he still considers himself an employee of B.T.L. and will fight his dismissal in the courts.
