Will Stevedores Finally Get Their Collective Bargaining Agreement with Port of Belize?

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The C.W.U.’s membership is at about nine hundred and stretches across the country from north to south and east to west: Belize City Council and Central Bank to Saint Martin’s Credit Union to Citrus Products of Belize Limited. But it is safe to say that the humble stevedores working at the Port of Belize Limited are the mouth and muscle of the Union, and also its longest suffering members.  They have been without a collective bargaining agreement for more than a decade and have had to resort to various incidents of protest to gain attention.  It was a problem that even bedevilled new President Dale Trujeque’s predecessor, Audrey Matura, but Trujeque says the stevedores are owed a satisfactory conclusion to their fight.

Dale Trujeque, President, Christian Workers Union

“Evidently, it seems we are unable to dialogue the way we ought to dialogue with the Port, but we will approach them again. We will be persistent at the engagement process; we will be persistent. We have to talk about this pending agreement, and nobody can tell me we can’t conclude an agreement. We will have to conclude an agreement; there’s no question about that. We will re-strategize, and re-approach the Port. A lot of stevedores were at the meeting on Saturday, and I want to remind them again through this medium: I will meet with you all next week Saturday, not this Saturday; I will convene a meeting with all of them to hear them out and look at what has been done so far in terms of trying to get the agreement going; and then we will approach management.”

Other outstanding agreements include workers of Social Security Board.