Labour Minister Hulse was also able to discuss was the status of the negotiation between the Belize Energy Workers Union and the Management of BEL on an across-the-board salary increase. The union has been threatening industrial action - but Hulse told us that, from his perspective, a resolution could be worked out as soon as next week:
Daniel Ortiz
"It appears that the discussions are falling away and industrial action seems to be imminent. Is that the position, since you are at a more informed position than we are in the press?"
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Labour
"No it's not at all, the discussions are definitely not falling away and we are not close to industrial action. I personally spent 10 meetings and by labour commissioner and CEO took it from there to discuss with both parties. This has gone on now more than a month almost two. There were some structural issues that we wanted to clear on both sides first. We've been at a point where we have a better clarity for management and we were hoping to meet with the unions this week but we understand from them that they had some issues concerning a death in the family of some one of their persons in their negotiating team. So as a consequence we were not able to meet yesterday, we have a plan to meet on this coming Monday. It is my hope to be able to square this away when we do meet on Monday because there has now been tremendous clarity on both sides. Both what the unions really want and what the management really wants and we are fairly confident that we can bring this together."
Daniel Ortiz
"So when do you expect that an agreement can be signed?"
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Labour
"I would hope it can be Monday, or at least we are working towards that."
We'll keep following up to see if the stalemate in these negotiations has indeed been broken.
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