Stevedores’ Strike Results in Cargo Vessel Returning to Miami

For the first time in history on Monday, a vessel, the Caribe Navigator from Miami, sailed away from the Belize Port without offloading its cargo following a seven-hour strike taken by stevedores attached to gang number seven at the Port of Belize. The industrial action, discovered to have been sanctioned by the Christian Workers Union minutes before the vessel departed, prompted an emergency meeting between executives from the Port of Belize and the CWU. When the matter at hand could not have been resolved, the Labor Commissioner, the Port Commissioner and the Commissioner of Police were called in and a second meeting was held to discuss the way forward. That meeting ended late into the night and according to Port C.E.O. Arturo “Tux” Vasquez, they will be looking into establishing an alternative when stevedores strike.

Arturo “Tux” Vasquez

Arturo “Tux” Vasquez, C.E.O./Receivership, Port of Belize

“When we had the first interview we had already met with the Christian Workers Union where we had tried every effort to get them back to work so that we can continue with the ongoing negotiations. That was not successful and as a result, we had already advised the Labor Commissioner and the Port Commissioner and also the Police Commissioner as to the situation. So what we had later on yesterday was a meeting with the Labor Commissioner, the Port Commissioner and the Police. And basically what the port has done at this point…well as you know the ship has sailed. There were some discussions as to whether the ship was going to return and as to whether the police would have taken it on as an illegal action, but the shipping agent had decided that it had gone so they were not prepared to turn back. But I believe that in the future there is quite a possibility that there has to be an alternative as to what will happen when we have a situation like this. That is something that the Port Commissioner has agreed that they need to look into and to establish some sort of alternative to when we have something like this. The Port has since written to the Labor Commissioner asking for intervention for them to see how they could resolve that situation. It is a labor issue; it is something that you have workers that are refusing to work. So we believe that we have done all we can to try and see if we could have gotten them back. It seems to us that despite the fact that in all our discussions and all our documentations that we have signed between the Christian Workers Union and the Port of Belize is that we will try to make every effort for strikes to be minimal because strikes do not help the negotiating process. There is absolutely no way that we could be expected to continue proper negotiation if in fact we are being held at ransom so to speak, as hostages so to speak.”