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But today it seems he came around to deal with at least one of those demands. He told us why management agreed to grant the stevedores pay on a per day basis as they had requested.

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez - CEO, Port of Belize
"Today the priority was really to get everything back on track. So I think it was important for us to meet and at least be compromise in what we agreed on."

Jules Vasquez
"Were you force to give in because of the work stoppage?"

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"In these negotiations you know and actual manner and behavior of the unions is always to try to get you to the table, try to force you into certain things but at the end of the day if it was not something practical for us or something that we can do even if it creates a little more work for us then I don't think I would have given into it."

"Paying them on a daily basis as I said two weeks from now we will look at it and as we get into it if there is any complications I am sure that we will discuss it further in the negotiation."

"Today on both parties the interest really here was to get things back on track and to agree to something like this I don't think it's that much of a deal for us to agree. It is not what we would prefer to do but it is not that as the person here making that decision - is something that I would have said absolutely no and create a bigger problem."

Jules Vasquez
"To hear the union say that you all have abandoned or failed to live up to your side of the negotiation framework and this industrial action has force you all to now come back to the negotiating framework. Do you accept that characterization?"

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"What it did also for us is to bring them back to where we were day before yesterday. My thing here is to get back to the overall negotiation that he have and try to get that out of the way. I think that is also something that was important not to lose. There were two things; trying to get the ship back on track and also trying to get us back on that negotiation that we sign in April. For me that is very important to do. We need to get that done; otherwise there will be many more fights if we can't get all these particular things that we have listed in that framework agreement discussed."

"For me, I think both sides gain."

Negotiations resume on May 24th.

We should note that while there was a work stoppage on the sugar ship - work continued as normal on other cargo vessels during the go-slow and work stoppage.