The debate on the billion dollar budget is winding up at this hour - but as we told you at the top - most of the debating has had little to do with numbers, and much to do with a whole bunch of other stuff, from noodles to George Price. Opening up today's session was Wilfred Elrington, who had the longest presentation at one hour and forty minutes. He spoke on a whole host of issues, including the state of striking workers. He discussed the 13 Bowen and Bowen employees who staged a sick out, the teacher's union who took days off for rallies, and the gang of stevedores who staged a 12 hour strike because they didn't like the food the Port of Belize had gotten for them. Elrington didn't mince words:..
Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Pickstock
"But I am sounding the warning to all our workers that you have to produce and you cannot just not come to work and say you are not going to work because you are upset. You see what the people at Bowen and Bowen has done at Bowen and Bowen; poor workers misguided by their leadership decided that they are going to stay at home to study some proposals that the management gave them. When they went back the following day there was no job. That is how the private sector works. It is only in government that you can stop work every week and still go collect your salary - it doesn't happen in the private sector and it can't continue to happen because if you are not generating you can't pay. People can only pay if you are generating."
"If you have a dispute, work out your dispute in a mature way but don't deprive children of service. Those guys at the Port, again I am sorry for them. They struck news said because they gave them ramen for breakfast or noodles - they strike. It costs the shipping company thousands of dollars. That is not the way we behave, our country is not going to develop if we don't tell out people that is not the way to do it. All you need is to have something in your stomach. When you finish your job, you get your money you go and buy your special chicken but keep your job. You can't have a ship out there that is costing thousands of dollars an hour and because you did not get a special chicken you don't work."
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