7 News Belize

BEL Says Workers Aren't Living Up to Their Commitments
posted (April 26, 2012)
This afternoon - BEL's Corporate Secretary Dawn Sampson Nunez agreed to discuss the issues raised by the union. She says they have tried to enter into talks but they were rebuffed.

Here's why she says BEL is not to blame:..

Dawn Sampson Nunez, BEL's Corporate Secretary
"The employees that you saw out there today, I think there were approximately 30 or so members of the Belize Energy Workers Union - we do not discard any concerns that they have. At the end of the day it's a large company, we have approximately 270 or so employees. In a large organization like this, you are going to make decisions that some people are happy with and other employees are not happy with. That is expected."

"What we expect though is that when we have differences - when we do not agree in relation to the operations, we expect that proper procedures will be followed. We expect that we would be given an opportunity to properly address any concerns and I can tell you in this case that the union prior to the demonstration today and even now up to the time of this interview has not approached BEL; has not approached the management of this company to say can we sit and wait and address our concerns, these are our concerns, these are our issues, can we sit and meet with you to resolve the matters? We are very disappointed from our perspective."

"Up to this morning we extended an invitation to the president of the union. We attempted to deliver a letter of invitation to the president of the union to sit in a meeting with us and he advised us that he would not accept any communication, any letter from BEL until after the demonstration. So, that's a bit disappointing."

"With respect to the issue of the dismissal/termination of the employees I can tell you that I've reviewed the situation with our HR department and clearly the company did follow the procedures outlined in the partnership collective agreement."

Jules Vasquez
"You are satisfied that you all have lived up to all those obligations because the union is saying that the union has not been informed that these union members were dismissed."

Dawn Sampson Nunez, BEL's Corporate Secretary
"I am very confident that the company has lived up to the obligations outlined in the partnership collective agreement."

Jules Vasquez
"Will these workers be re-instated?"

Dawn Sampson Nunez, BEL's Corporate Secretary
"Jules, we followed the proper procedure outlined in the partnership collective agreement. Like I said we are very confident of that. The agreement was signed back in July 2008. We reminded the union in relation to these cases of what the procedures were. We have followed those procedures."

Jules Vasquez
"How will these multiple issues be resolved? The union has issued a threat that it can escalate, that it has broad-based support; even the word "outages" were mentioned."

Dawn Sampson Nunez, BEL's Corporate Secretary
"We are still waiting for the union to come to the management of the company to ask for a meeting for us to resolve the issues. Like I said we made an attempt this morning, it was rejected. The letter was not accepted. Going forward, our position remains that we are open to dialogue. "

The union circulated a list of six demands - we could not deal with all of them tonight, but will have both sides of those demands in tomorrow's newscast.

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