No progress in B.T.L. labour dispute

To say that there has been little movement in the labour dispute between the Belize Communications Workers Union and B.T.L. might actually be an exaggeration. Bulletins from the Union indicate that its request for dialogue and the reinstatement of three fired workers has fallen on deaf ears. For its part, B.T.L. management continues to maintain that it acted within the law and its union agreement and stands ready to dialogue through a management team headed by Human Resource Manager, Martha Molina. The B.C.W.U. insists that only executive committee Chairman Dean Boyce should negotiate for the company. The Union has been on a go slow/work-to-rule since Monday and has also given the required twenty-one days notice of industrial action. That notification period expires on February twenty-third. While the controversy shows few signs of gaining the public’s serious attention, there are indications that other constituents of the union movement may seek to ride the coattails of the B.T.L. dispute and expand it across a wide range of issues involving the broader state of governance in Belize.