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7news was there when the meeting ended - and President Luke Palacio outlined for us the Union's final and official position:..

Luke Palacio, President of BNTU
"Today those branches presented the results of their branch votes. We have 8 of our 10 branches saying no to the 9th amendment, 2 more branches are to give us a response by Monday because they are still tallying their results, so given what we receive today the position of the Belize National Teachers Union is that we do not support the 9th amendment."

Jules Vasquez
"Will the Union join any group or itself launch any coordinated resistance on the passage of the 9th amendment?"

Luke Palacio, President of BNTU
"As it relates to that I think we are expecting that - well if the government insist and passes the 9th, I guess despite what protests are held they have the numbers to pass it. We don't know if that is in the best interest of the country, but to answer you directly we will then have to call in our council and then work on what plan of action we would carry out."

George Fraser - Executive Secretary of BNTU
"Whether the government passes it or not, it does not rest there because we want to make sure that there is openness, transparency, accountability and what benefits will accrued to the Belizean public."

Not that it matters, but up to when we checked this afternoon, the Union's other two branches had still not put in their final vote. We'll have more from that teacher's meeting shortly, but staying on The Ninth. First, the final meeting of the Constitution and Foreign Affairs Committee was held today in Belmopan. This one wasn't a public consultation, per se, it was a regular committee meeting to review the results of the hearings and the written submissions and make decisions on the final changes. Significantly, both opposition members John Briceno and Francis Fonseca were absent.

And while the opposition boycotted that important final meeting, opposition affiliated actions to stop the Ninth continue. Word to our newsroom tonight is that opposition figures Vaughan Gill and Ricardo Castillo in tandem with Ashcroft Alliance Attorneys have filed an action in the Supreme Court requesting an injunction - not to stop parliament - but to restrain the Attorney General from passing the law unto the Governor General, or to restrain the GG form signing it, and to restrain the Prime Minister from bringing it into force.

As regards protests that may be mounted on Friday, you heard the teachers says they would have to go back to council - and it appears, the opposition - managing a leadership transition and empty coffers will likely not be protesting.

And while that is the latest on the Ninth, the teachers also have an issue over a more than a hundred teachers who have not been getting paid since the starts of the news school year.

According to the Union it's all tied up in red tape:

George Fraser - Executive Secretary of BNTU
"You know we have a new teaching service commission which has its regulations. They are claiming that many of the teachers and management had not sent in all their documents in time. The blame game goes around but the bottom-line as labor laws and others will tell you, if you work me and pay by the week or the month, when that period is up you should pay me. Hence the noise, concerns of the teachers."

"It came to the attention of the Ministry and you all will recall that the Ministry of Education through its public relations officer Mrs. Arlet Gomez, put out a release that teachers who did not get paid at the end of September would be paid by the end of the week which ended Yesterday. So we call them, I called some of the main management, the Catholics told me that as far as they can ascertain over 150 catholic teachers were not paid, the Anglicans told me 16 were not paid, the Methodists told me 15. We don't know the figures yet for high schools but it is at least a couple hundred people, so as we told the ministry and people from the teaching service commission - look you need to pay these people. The Labor law is if you work me pay me. The other thing about documents - yes we agree with it but that is taking too long, especially the police records and other things."

We were unable to reach the Ministry's Public Relations Officer to find out what is the new schedule for payday.