Union Expresses Concerns About Extent of Finances to Continue Strike

Kathleen Flowers

As we mentioned earlier, the Belize National Teachers’ Union does have financial concerns, though there have been efforts made to raise donations in the community. The Union has a strike fund for contingencies but Kathleen Flowers says other members of the community are being asked to take up the slack.

Kathleen Flowers, President, Belize District Branch, B.N.T.U.

“My plea to the public is to understand that these teachers that are standing for this country are doing so at a high cost because we do have our financial commitments. And it is going to be at some point in time that we will have to determine how long we can sustain it. But we are not asking other persons to come on board; it can’t be our fight for as long as it needs to be. We have other social partners that are very much a part of being nation builders and it’s time for them to help us prove that.”

Reporter

“Ma’am what is the financial cost for every day that a teacher is out on strike or for these four days so far?”

Kathleen Flowers

“It’s going to be weird because we have a range of pay scales on which teachers get paid. But averagely it is going to range from anywhere from thirty-eight dollars or so to a hundred and two, a hundred and ten dollars per day. So each branch is being asked to do that exercise with their teachers as well—I know today Belize Branch is doing that exercise with the teachers—so we show them realistically what we are looking at. And so each branch will get an opportunity to exercise that process and teachers will be able to sit down and analyse because as teachers, when we set out to teach a lesson, we begin that lesson, but we take the time to evaluate it. And this lesson that we are going nationwide with, we have to step back and evaluate and we have to look at if we’ve made our objectives, have we been able to do as we set out to do when we began to teach. And if not, we re-strategize and re-teach. And so at this point that is exactly where we are.”