Barrow advises Stevedores to stand firm
The deeper we delve into the labour dispute at the Belize City Port the more it looks like a fight that never had to happen…at least not yet. Today the Union called a meeting to inform stevedores of their legal position and while the legal scholar in question happened to be the Leader of the Opposition, his advice to union members was unequivocal: don?t give up the fight. News 5?s Patrick Jones reports on this morning?s developments.
Antonio Gonzalez, President, Christian Workers Union
?What we wanted the membership and the stevedores to understand the legal aspect as to why the Union is taking a firm stand as to the situation of the Port of Belize Limited. They have to understand it. We can explain it, but they have a legal person behind it, explaining the legal aspects of it, it?s more acceptable, it?s more acceptable to them. And this was the reason behind the meeting today.?
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The free legal advice came courtesy of senior counsel and Leader of the Opposition Dean Barrow. Barrow told the disgruntled waterfront workers that they are standing on firm legal ground and should stay the course with their union.
Dean Barrow, Senior Counsel
?The Union?s position I think is strong. But what is more important is that the Port Authority has intervened even though in a fairly preliminary and diffident fashion, the Port Authority has said to the Port of Belize, you will not proceed to just cut off the current arrangements, say you are taking over, elbow these people out and employ your new people. And as long as the Port of Authority continues to take that stand, I think that provides an effective block to Port of Belize Limited.?
Union officials say they have obtained a copy of a legal advice on the issue given by Government point man on legal affairs, Solicitor General Elson Kaseke, which is the same as Barrow?s. That is, that the Port Authority, which is the instrument of government that regulates port activities in Belize, is well within its rights to stop the private owners of the facility on Caesar Ridge road from riding roughshod over the workers.
Dean Barrow
?That regulatory body, the Port Authority has already said to Port of Belize Limited, listen, you cannot disrupt the current arrangements unless and until you submit to us your proposals for new arrangements which we have to approve. In that kind of a legal context, the union and the stevedores can insist to government: look, you didn?t make proper provisions for us when you passed the law transferring ownership of the Port but you must instruct the Port Authority to stick to its guns, to insist on what it has already said to Port of Belize Limited that nothing can change our current status except there is an agreement on the part of all sides concerned as to any changes. Absent that, the present arrangements continue.?
Barrow says the current move by the new owners of the Port defies logic, since the current bargaining agreement with the stevedores expires in less than a year, and all parties have been co-existing with no problems until now.
Dean Barrow
?For all this while things have been continuing as they are, why really is there any need now to create all this fuss, to create all this hostility to create all this animosity, to possibly provoke a situation in which there can be an explosion, when it seems that the arrangements have been functioning effectively. If they hadn?t surely Port of Belize Limited as soon as it took over would have said we can?t live with this, we need to put an end to this now. No, no, it?s been going on for perhaps over a year. I would appeal to Port of Belize Limited, man try to negotiate a new arrangement that will not disadvantage the workers or at least continue to live with the current arrangements, until it expires and then everybody can start afresh, an start a new at that juncture.?
CWU president Gonzales says that while no progress has been made towards a settlement, he is encouraged that at least the owner of the Port, Luke Espat has come to the bargaining table.
Antonio Gonzalez
?Well with any dispute if you have both parties coming together, I think it?s a positive sign. And we welcome positiveness in any dispute. So I believe there is a move there to find solution. And we hope and we trust that the Port of Belize and Luke Espat is there to find a solution. The Union has always said we have always said it, let us discuss this issue, we are prepared to find solutions. So this is a positive step towards finding a solution to this dispute.?
And while union officials will be fighting with the Port owners in the boardroom, Gonzales says he will be asking the Stevedores to turn down the rhetoric a bit until a resolution is arrived at. Patrick Jones, for News 5.
Barrow says mediator Assad Shoman should be guided by the weight of the law, and by Kaseke?s legal opinion. If that happens, Barrow says there can be no change in the stevedores? terms of employment. This would mean that at least until April of next year, Port of Belize Limited will not be able to disrupt the current arrangements. The stevedores plan to picket the Port compound again on Thursday.
