Last week, we showed you our interview with Arturo "Tux" Vasquez, the CEO of the Port of Belize, in which he reacted to the comments made by Audrey Matura-Shepherd, President of the Christian Workers Union.
She says that the union will be going back to the beginning of the bargaining process for the Stevedores, because their position is that the former executives of the union, Antonio Gonzalez and James McFoy, supposedly misled the bargaining process.
That has caused some concern for the Port's current management since certain agreements were already reached. Vasquez believes that it is unreasonable to scrap all that progress and go way back to the beginning.
Today, the CWU president was asked to comment on the response from Vasquez and she didn't mince words:
Audrey Matura-Shepherd, President - CWU
"I will only say that he has his opinion. We are not going to be bargaining in public, but if he wants us to bargain in public, I will meet his demands and bargain in public. As it stands CWU has every right to present a CBA to the port, not to Mr. Vasquez personally, he is just a representative there, to the Port Authority and they can choose whether they want to bargain with us or not. The standard has always been that the union sends in a CBA, the employers responds what they agree or don't agree and what we don't agree, we negotiate over. I think it's premature for him to say that, because it might be that some of the same things we've agreed on, will be in there and it has been agreed upon. But I realize that a lot of men like to act prematurely. I could accept that."
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