C.W.U. Takes CitCo to Task over C.B.A.

The Christian Workers Union is taking the Belize City Council to task over a Collective Bargaining Agreement – or the steps that need to be taken to get to that agreement. According to C.W.U., the CitCo has disrespected them by failing to engage on critical issues. The C.W.U. is asking the Council to provide their counter-proposal to the C.B.A. that the C.W.U. had sent in since October 2019. The C.W.U. says that it has been fifteen months, and the City Council has failed to respond in a meaningful way and commit to presenting their counter-proposal, and now the CWU’s membership is tired of waiting.  Today, the President of the C.W.U., Evan Mose Hyde called a virtual briefing to update the media about the matter. He outlines the two principal issues that have brought them to this crossroads with the Belize City Council.

Evan “Mose” Hyde, President, C.W.U.

“Those disputes, namely, one, we were informed early January that the Belize City Council would not be able to provide us with counter proposal on our new CBA before March thirty-first 2021. So, we outlined in a press release why we feel that is an unacceptable response and we describe the situation where we made our versions of the proposal back in October 2019. And we had tried both formally and informally to inquire about when we could get a response. The second matter of concern for us was the abrupt transfer of three of our reps without any prior notification or involvement from CWU. After our chief rep was transferred we asked for a meeting with the Belize City Council so that we could express our concerns about how it was done and we lamented the lack of engagement, the lack of prior motives and the lack of input. So we were very disappointed that in the aftermath of that two more of our reps were transferred.”