Dickie Bradley Warns Teachers to Have Their Own Back Amid Union-Busting Claims

Dickie Bradley

As we have previously reported, the Belize National Teachers’ Union has threatened to take the Government to court over allegations of union busting. The Union has accused the Government of deliberately interfering with union members to prevent or retard various actions including Monday’s planned strike. Just yesterday, two senior members of Government were seen personally visiting schools in their constituencies, asking teachers not to participate in the B.N.T.U.’s planned strike. Today attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley addressed the issue from a legal perspective, warning that they may be leaving themselves open for a Government attack.

Richard “Dickie” Bradley, Attorney

“The teachers of Belize have a right to strike; that is the law, the law of the land. Now I would have to say to you that the lawyers for the Teachers’ Union, whoever they may be, will need to go and find that decision by the former Chief Justice of the country, because the Teachers’ Union need to be erring on the safe side, in that they have been saying and I am not sure [of] the exact words – that it is not only the three, or it’s not the three, meaning the three percent that the Government is trying to have them put off…but the teachers need to make it be very clear, to make it clear to the Government in writing preferably that me and you have a trade dispute over your suggestion and proposal that you are not going to pay us teachers our three percent that we have a signed, written agreement on. The Government is looking to renege on an agreement – I’m sorry to use that word – they wahn bruk the agreement, dehn no wahn pay the teacher dehn. I would want to tell you this: the Government will more than likely sneak into the Supreme Court, do what is called an ex parte application for an injunction, to prevent teachers from leaving the classroom and going on strike. They will more than likely want to use the excuse, which is a fairly good excuse, that there is no trade dispute; there is not a Union issue; there is not a workers’-employers issue, because the Union is focusing a lot of attention on the eight points they have put forward. They need to put in writing to the Government: me and you have a trade dispute over our three percent, and we are concerned about these eight issues, so that the Government cannot go back of their backs, get an injunction on Saturday morning and then go crazy on the airwaves, warning all teachers that you are disobeying the Supreme Court, that you are breaking the law.”

Bradley called for national support for the teachers, citing the heavy B.T.L. debt and reports of more than three hundred contract officers on the Public Service payroll as clear examples of Government wastage that could be redirected to paying the teachers.