Last night we told you about the five Belize Water Service Employees who were fired in January and are now taking their former employer to court for wrongful dismissal. Today, for the first time, we got to speak to three of them about their lawsuit. They asked to appear off camera, but told us they must vindicate their name after being terminated under questionable circumstances.
Voice of Ex-Employee - BWS
"We have filed a court action in the Supreme Court of Belize. The ex-employees feel that we were dealt with wrongly. We were handed a letter of redundancy just as a scape goat to fire us based on implications of involvement of a scandalous letter concerning management and staff of BWS. That is basically our position at this present time. Now you have BWS still hiring people under these same position that became redundant. Maybe they have different name but they do the same thing. That then to me convinces the intention that BWS is not going through a redundancy process - then what is it? Then my union should have stepped in. The fact that gets to me the most is that we have people paying dues to a union who should be there to put that 'metal shield' for them to defend us. As of today at this time we have not gotten any response or communication from the union. We have not heard anything from the Belize Water Services union - nothing at all. That is our mother union - the union that we have paid our dues to. In regards to Mr. Mceifer has been there for over twenty five years and he has not gotten not even an ounce of support or defense from the union any at all, to me that is unfair. In my point of view and in my position, the union has been compromised. How can you have your Vice President and General Secretary get fired and their post has become redundant in one day? And not even a fight, nor a release, nor a phone call to say they are going to get to the bottom of the situation."
Their attorney is Antionette Moore. And while the workers are going to court, the National trade Union Congress of Belize has still not issued any statement on their termination – which is quite incredible since the Union Vice President and General Secretary were among those fired.
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