7 News Belize

Bagasse Payment Coming
posted (March 19, 2015)
Tomorrow Sugar Cane farmers from the north will be receiving their first payment for bagasse. IT's a retroactive payment for 2014 based on the agreement signed this year. That stipulated that ten weeks into the season the retroactive payment would be made. It adds up to about half a million dollars and Chief Financial Officer Belizario Carballo explained how it is broken down:

Belizario Carballo
"That payment will therefore be made this Friday the 20th of March as per the agreement and as per the calculation of the amount to be paid is set out on the agreement and that calculation has workout to a total figure of $597,000, when divided by the amount of cane that was delivered was close to 1.2 million tons of cane last crop. On a per ton basis it averages out about fifty cents per ton."

And while it is paying the farmers, BSI also signed a new collective bargaining agreement with the Belize Workers Union - which represents BSI workers. The agreement is for four years from 2014 to 2018 - and includes certain benefits for workers. But against the wishes of the union leadership it was signed yesterday without the oversight of the Labor Commissioner - at the resolution of the union membership. Carballo said that his presence was not essential:...

Belizario Carballo
"We had agreed with the BWU increases in wages over that four year period and also other adjustments in other parts of the CBA but that is a mature CBA that we all collectively agreed that it is a progressive CBA and it is one that both side feel good about it."

Ramiro Gongora - Chairman of BWU Orange Walk Branch
"BSI states that everything will remain the same but who can tell. How could you all of a sudden don't want the Labor Commissioner to sign, but the membership made their decision and we complied, so we signed it. Although under duress, but that was the decision of the members."

Belizario Carballo
"There is no legal requirement for anyone to witness that the two parties are signing the agreement. That was all the role that the witness had played."

Ramiro Gongora
"Resolution stating that we signed this collective bargaining agreement without the Labor Commissioner present."

Belizario Carballo
"All that is required is for BSI and BWU to sign on the agreement and the parties on the agreement have agreed; the CBA and they have signed the CBA and it is effective. The role of the Labor Commissioner is still there and still define by the labor act and so we have assured the BWU that not having a witness, does not render CBA any less valid."

BSI also signed a collective agreement with tower hill hourly paid workers.

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