Union leader says G.O.B. will compromise

When we last left the Social Security controversy on Monday evening, union leaders were meeting in Belmopan with the Prime Minister following a morning of mass protest marches in several municipalities. There has been no official communiqué from the participants, but according to the President of the Belize National Teacher’s Union, Anthony Fuentes, that meeting with Prime Minister Said Musa, Minister of Finance Ralph Fonseca, Chief Executive Officer in the Ministry of Public Service, Margaret Ventura, and Cabinet Secretary Robert Leslie has produced some significant results.

According to Fuentes, Government has agreed to leave the retirement age at sixty-five, a major reversal from the proposed two year increase to age sixty-seven. Secondly, he reports that Belmopan has agreed to compromise on raising the amount of weekly insurable earnings and will dialogue with the unions to finalise an acceptable figure beyond the current three hundred and twenty dollar weekly ceiling.

Fuentes says the unions will present their suggestions to the government representatives at another meeting scheduled for Friday in Belmopan at two p.m. But while both sides appear to share common ground on those issues, there is said to be complete deadlock regarding the proposed increase in Social Security contribution payments from seven to eight percent of insurable earnings.

So is there an end in sight? There just could be as we are told that the Prime Minister also promised that while the National Health Insurance scheme will roll out in April 2004 for north side Belize District residents, that not only would he consult with unions prior to implementation, but that government will not come back to the people for more money to pay for N.H.I. Exactly where G.O.B. will find these funds is not clear.

In related news, we have been made to understand that the two union representatives nominated to sit on the newly composed Social Security Board have been chosen. They are Interim President of the N.T.U.C.B., Horris Patten, and Antonio Gonzales of the Christian Workers Union. The members of that new board met for the first time this afternoon in Belmopan.