Union and credit union employees victorious after a day of protest

antonio gonzalez

While the Mayas were victorious on Monday, the Christian Workers Union also made headway following a one-day strike. The staff of St. Martins Credit Union, a member of the CWU, staged a sit-in on Tuesday. Employees showed up to work but offered no services to the public. The issues at the center of the strike go back to 2007 when the management of the credit union in Cayo, signed an agreement with the Christian Workers Union regarding staff benefits.  According to the President of the Christian Workers Union, Antonio Gonzalez, the credit union agreed to pay a bonus for the first year but then they seemed to have forgotten the agreement and refused to honor it.

Antonio Gonzalez, President, Christian Workers Union

“They claimed that the union worked in bad faith and that it was not the intention to pay seventy-five percent of the monthly salary of the employee but rather seventy-five percent of the bi-monthly salary”

Jose Sanchez

“Which is much less.”

Antonio Gonzalez

“Which is much less. But they signed the document. They had it before them and I presume they discussed it at their board level. When it was the day for signing the labour commissioner asked both parties whether they agreed with the conditions of the document. Everybody agreed, they signed it and each page was initialed by the signatories. So both parties agreed to what was embedded in the agreement. Well they didn’t pay, we brought it 2008, 2009, 2010 and we brought it to the attention from the initial stage when they refused and this has been continuing, continuing. So as the union, we know that we have procedures within the collective agreement and we requested consolation through the Ministry of Labour. That went through with two meetings. It didn’t materialize; nothing positive came out. The only other alternative is to have some kind of industrial action, which we did on the twenty-ninth of June. We had members who decided that they would go in but do no kind of services to the membership of the credit union. But in addition to the bonus there were other issues within the collective agreement like meritorious award, like a pension scheme, like instituting adequate security measures since the crime situation and so on and an appraisal system because at this stage the credit union doesn’t have anything. So I don’t know how they evaluate and at the same instance they didn’t give increments. We discussed the issues and it came out positive in the sense he said that he would give us an answer by one o’clock yesterday, which he did and they agreed to pay the bonus, the full seventy-five percent of the monthly salary retroactively. They also agreed to pay salary increase retroactively.”

The Liaison Officer for the credit union’s board, Raymond Morris, says that the other issues such as security, meritorious award, pension, and appraisal system will all be addressed before the thirty-first of July.  All services at St. Martin’s Credit Union are back to normal.