Unionised B.T.L. workers begin industrial action

Members of the Belize Communication Workers Union have decided to take industrial action to express their displeasure over what it calls the lack of commitment by B.T.L.’s Board of Directors to facilitate their purchase of a twenty percent stake in the company. According to a union press release, members have instituted a “work to rule” effective today and a “go slow” beginning October eleventh. The B.T.L. board, controlled by Michael Ashcroft and the Government of Belize, has created an entity, Sunshine Holdings, that it says will hold the shares in trust for the workers. But according to the union, the trustees have thus far been unwilling to show the union all the details of how the trust will operate. Under the proposed forty million dollar arrangement, G.O.B. will be fronted thirty million dollars–twenty by the Belize Bank and ten by Social Security–as immediate payment for the shares, while future dividends will ostensibly service those loans to Sunshine. The Sunshine trustees will continue to exercise the shares’ voting rights until such time as the workers can complete the forty million dollar payment. It is not known whether government will continue with the Sunshine plan in the face of union opposition or whether it will come up with a new way to raise the badly needed cash.