The First Caribbean International Bank ceased operations in Belize today. It's the end of an era - because First Caribbean took over from Barclay's which was established in Belize in the mid 1900's. That circle is closed now as all their assets have been sold to the Heritage Bank.
But what about their employees? Well, as of today, the 60 plus workers are out of a job. Now for months we've been reporting on labour agitation as these employees protested - demanding a fair exit package for their years of service.
But, since December, the labour agitation went quiet, and that's because according to Country Manager Glenn Smith, the bank management and the employees finally agreed on a suitable exit package. They signed a Memorandum of Agreement one week ago on Friday January 22nd and they also agreed on the terms of the outstanding Collective Bargaining Agreement for the period 2014 to 2016. Today when the bank gave its final round of charitable donations, we asked Smith about this settlement of the dispute:
Glenn Smith, Country Manager - FCIB
"The bank has always felt that we wanted to have negotiated agreement with our staff. Our staff is our biggest asset that we have and we wanted to treat with them fairly and in a manner that the bank could afford to do and so we after months of difficult and touch negotiations, both sides were sufficient professionally enough to at the end of the day sit down at the table and come up to what we consider to be a reasonable benefit package for our staff. As you know the bank has always maintain that we do not negotiate in public. We consider the privacy of our staff sacrosanct and so we will not get into the details of what the package was. But it was much better than the minimum requirements by law and so we are proud that we are able to reach an agreement with them that they could live it and that they would see to carry them over the challenges of the next month or two. We have no issue with staff having demonstrations or doing whatever they consider necessary in furtherance of an industrial dispute, It is part of the development of industrial relations law and practice and Belize's is coming of age. So the bank understands that and is able to appreciate their rights to do that and also the staff at the end of the day came back to the bargaining table. We sat down and as true professionals we were able to come to a negotiated settlement."
But while Smith is quite contented with how things turned out, CWU President Audrey Matura-Shepherd is not. Today via text she told us "the CWU did not authorize the signing. I was shocked to find out about it and even more so how come the signing was kept secret until one week ago." We asked Smith about this and he said as a far as he is concerned the agreement is authentic and the CWU representative who signed the MOA was authorized to do so.
Glenn Smith, Country Manager - FCIB
"I cannot speak for the CWU. I can only speak for the bank. What I can say is that what is contained in the MOA is what was negotiated with a properly constituted negotiating team representing the staff and the union and in fact during the last few days of negotiations, we sought clarification and we received reconfirmation that the team representing the First Caribbean Bargaining unit is authorized to do so. I cannot comment on anything that the union president may say. I didn't hear it. It wasn't directed at me. So probably you should clarify that with her."
Matura- Shepherd also said the "CWU executive will be meeting to discuss and find out what transpired". We will keep following up for the official comment from the CWU. She then ended her response by thanking the FCIB employees for their years of service.
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