Port of Belize Prepared for Eventuality of Industrial Action

Arturo ‘Tux’ Vasquez

According to C.E.O. ‘Tux’ Vasquez, the Port of Belize has put in place security, as well as measures in the event that stevedores proceed with industrial action following the twenty-one day notice.

Isani Cayetano

“Now essentially you’ve been put on twenty-one days notice, notwithstanding the internal mechanisms that ought to be followed to try to reach an amicable solution prior to industrial action being taken.  If this, for whatever reason, is subverted, for want of a better word, and the impasse or the industrial action commences, what are we looking at?  I believe that the consumers will stand to lose, the shipping industry will take a lick and what have you.  What will we be looking at in terms of a real situation on the ground?”

Arturo ‘Tux’ Vasquez, C.E.O., Port of Belize Limited

“Well, a strike is a strike, meaning that no work is happening. The stevedores will not be operating.  I am hoping that we don’t get to that point and I want to think that the Settlement of Disputes in the Essential Services Act was written in a way that tries to exhaust every other opportunity you have before you get to that level, because as you rightly said, if you get to that position so many things will be affected.  So many things will be affected.  So of course, we are not ignoring the fact that the notice has been made, so we are putting in internal procedures in place, both security purposes and also how we will proceed on that particular day to see how we will continue to operate if in fact the CWU is on strike.”