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Now, you may be asking - since when do Stevedores get lunch delivered to them? Trust us, that's only one part of a very tangled and thorny dispute - which started at 5:00 am at the Port of Belize and 7news was there. Jules Vasquez has the story:...

Leopold Smart - Stevedore, 40 Years
"A man has to die for his bread. That's what I was telling them; a man has to die for his bread."

Jules Vasquez reporting
That was the sentiment this morning 60 Waterfront Workers massed up in front of the Port of Belize Limited to unofficially-officially launch industrial action against the Port ownership - which right now is a receivership.

Raymond Rivers - Stevedore
"We sent proposals to these people. They sent back letters stating that they are broke; they can't deal with us. And we see that they are buying a whole heap of things in this yard, and they say that they are broke. We were going to work sugar this morning, and we are implementing a go-slow because we need these people inside to move faster."

And until they do - there is a standing list of demands

Deon Pitter - Stevedore
"Our message to them is that every shift when we come in, we want our checks. We want our 'tea, dinner, and tea' because we save them 'paper', electricity, gas - we save them. Those people have no heart toward us, so we are making our stand right now. A sugar boat is out there; we are going slow until they come to the table with us."

Now a sugar barge usually takes weeks to fill up - but it can take months:

Deon Pitter
"And that could be very quick. Once we have the crane that is in shape, that can be very quick, and yet, it can be very slow. We can make it be slow or fast, we control that out there."

And as long as they have control, they have a list of demands

Raymond Rivers
"First, we used to get our pay every day, and these are some demands that we want to give you all. All stevedore over 65, try to pay off those men by Friday. All the wires and cables that aren't good out at the pier head, we want those changed by next week Monday. Stevedores are required to put in 250 tonnes of sugar on a two-gang set up. That's what they will get after this. Anything over the amount, stevedores want a reward, a bonus, or an incentive. Stevedores want our checks every shift, not every week. Stevedores want their food deliver 'tea, dinner, tea' now. Stevedores supposed to get their advance every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We want these things back. All stevedores should be insured the end of the month, or go-slow will continue 'til we dead'! And this is for the inside of port. No unions are here to protect us. We are the work force; we are the union. We are the ones who pay $30,000 every year. If we want this work to shut down, we don't need to ask any union anything. The latest we are ever taking to you all is by July. After that, I think the containers will shut down. That is our ultimatum toward this Port of Belize."

Beyond the hard talk directed at management - the rancor directed at the union was very notable:

Leopold Smart
"I don't know without our president or our general secretary here. None of them are around. It's only us who are around to present ourselves."

Deon Pitter
"I am kind of confused with Mr. McFoy, because the honest truth is that he wants to see us, and I think that sometimes he doesn't want to see us. I really can't say anything pertaining to Mr. McFoy because only he can defend his attention to us, but it's not a good amount of attention we are getting from them."

But five hours later McFoy was at attention - and seems to have fallen in line with his union. He was flanked by Pitters and Rivers as he held an impromptu press conference:

James McFoy - General Secretary, CWU
"I, as the official, never knew, about that meeting, however, when they called me this morning, I told them that I was already in the mood for an action. The workers decided on it, and the union officially is sanctioning this industrial action taken."

And so now the action, which is the go-slow - has the official support of the union - and formally, the dispute centers over this document, a negotiation framework which was signed between the Union and Management on March 23rd. It keeps both sides to a timeline; the union says it did and management did not.

Jame McFoy
"We gave you our proposal, you should have responded to us long before. You did not. I called them to ask if they received it, and they said that they did, but that they are working it. Working on it means that you are supposed to get something as a counter. When I received something, it was just a letter stating the condition. In other words, what they were saying is that this was the financial situation. I don't want to hear that. Let us get around the table, and let us talk."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez - CEO, Port of Belize
"We have been getting our negotiations underway. We have correspondence between both parties, and we were now expecting to meet during the week of the 21st; that was the next date that we had available."

Jules Vasquez
"They expected a counter-proposal. You did not furnish them a counter-proposal."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"I respect that. That's why, the meeting of May 3, would have been the time for us to discuss this over the table."

James McFoy
"Now, we as a union, we take this very serious because nobody takes advantage of this union. We are sick and tired of this happening, and I am not supposed to even know that this union is not a play union. We stand for what we stand for."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
My question to the union this morning is we are in the middle of a negotiation; we have a correspondence with each other. I need the union to be clear now as to whether demands - obviously, you can't have demands and have negotiations going on. So, I am waiting to hear if we will now be working on demands, or do we continue to process of negotiations that we currently have in place right now?"

James McFoy
"The number 1 issue is that we need to get around the table, and that is what the union has been trying to get done. Management has dodged and used other strategies not to get around the table. So, it's not the union's fault for what is happening. I told them. I never did use anything like a threat. I told them that I, nor the union, will not be responsible for anything that happens. And one of them said that I was threatening; I told them that it was not a threat. It was just the reality that I was telling them: what can and will happen."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"This morning, again, the conversion got to a level where I decided to stop talking, actually. All they had to say to me was that they have given me a message. It's a bit difficult to respond to that. So, they didn't ask me to come in and talk. They just said that they've given me a message."

Jules Vasquez
"Has that message been received?"

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"It has been received, yes, but I am waiting for the union representative to come to me and ask what we are going to do about their demands. Maybe then, we can invite them and have a discussion, but we can't have a discussion with the kind of language that was exchanged on the phone. That is not the language for negotiations or any kinds of discussions."

James McFoy
"We had agreed before that payment would have been made. Now the workers are saying that they want their food out there to time."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"In the history of the union, no food has ever been delivered. The advance is paid for them to purchase their own food. That is in writing, and the union knows that it is. What I found strange this morning - and I am trying to understand the reason why they are doing it - is because they are saying that they know that this is in writing. But they don't want that anymore, they want us to bring to food to them now. It's not practical. It's difficult for us to do that, and I told them on the phone this morning that we will obviously have to negotiate that. I can't just jump up and get to that, so the answer for me - at this point - was not to expect any meals."

James McFoy
"When I spoke to them I told them that we hadn't received anything. They said that they sent me a letter, and I told them that the letter was not a counter-proposal. The letter is just basically saying to union that they aren't in any financial position that they can this or that. They were basically saying that everything in our proposal was impossible. That is not negotiating in good faith. They are blanketing the entire thing."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"We responded in time, and Mr. McFoy agreed that we responded in time. What I think Mr. McFoy was not happy about is the response he got from us. But put that aside; May 3rd was the day that we were supposed to meet for the first time around the table. They could have brought that concern on that date. But the union decided not to meet on that day."

James McFoy
"When we tried to communicate with them, this one is a meeting; that one is in a meeting - in other words, they looked at the union and said, 'Yes, I can put you on the side. We don't need to speak to you.' This morning, one of them from the Port called me when I was trying to get them for so many weeks ago - called and wanted to talk to me now. That's why I'm saying that action speaks louder than words. This is one of the issues, when you take action, they hear."

Deon Pitter
"After they sent their counter-proposal, we were supposed to have sat down on May 3rd, just after the Easter Weekend. We came here; we called them, and got no response every time. So we decided to take a move to get attention, and this morning, that is what we created."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"We sent them an email, and asked if we were still on for May 3rd, they didn't respond by mail, but they responded by phone saying they won't because that is not the response that they wanted. I think that we should have been discussing that at the meeting. The first date we had to meet was May 3rd, but for some reason, the union could not meet on that day for some reason. During last week and this week in particular, we had other commitments that that Port had to deal with. So, I told the union that we would meet on the 21st. So, I'm very surprised by this go-slow request."

Raymond Rivers
"The employees in the yard, along with the CEO's and other bosses, every minute they get pay raises. So, how can they be broke? They just bought about 1 million dollars' worth of vehicles. They don't want to give us anything. They don't want to deal with us straight."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"Jules, we have never said to the union that we are strapped for cash. We have never said that."

Jules Vasquez
"You have said that you under constraints - a challenging position financially - receivership."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"Yes, but we have not said that this will affect our negotiations. We have not been able to start discussing our negotiations as yet. The framework continues. We have yet to meet on another day other than the May 3rd that they could not make it to the table. But we are not making any lavish expenditure at all."

James McFoy
"We've informed them that we are not stopping work. We are just taking an industrial action. We are not saying that we are not working, but we are taking industrial action."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"They actually said that they would not abandon the ship, which is a good thing. They said that they would go on a go-slow. That's the last conversation that I had with them this morning. It will affect us, obviously. Productivity will slow down. It costs - when these boats get here, they have a time that they are willing to stay here. So once the go-slow starts, the time will take longer for the ship to leave, and also, the sugar industry becomes very costly as well."

Jules Vasquez
"From an ethical union perspective, should you not have informed them that you intend to take industrial action before you commenced such action?"

James McFoy
"You can do that, and you don't have to. Listen to what I am saying; I explained that just a while ago to you that workers can take an action spontaneously."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"So I still need to understand why it is that they decided to do that this morning. Maybe there is something else behind it, which I don't know. And I wish that I would know. I wish that the union leaders would come and say why they did this."

Those interviews were conducted this morning. As we noted at the top of the newscast, since then - it's gone from a go-slow to a standstill.

And no one knows for sure what will happen next. The next gang of workers was supposed to go on duty at 6:00 pm, but they expect that dinner, or tea, will be delivered to them by management - and as Vasquez indicated that is not going to happen. So, the workers did not go to the ship - and all work has been held off until tomorrow. According to late reports an emergency meeting between the union and the management has been set for tomorrow morning at 10:00 - and work will resume after that - assume the meeting can break the standoff.

That's where it stands tonight, and we'll keep following the story tomorrow.