The BNTU's executive officers also announced this evening that they've been trying to get a progress report from the Prime Minister. They want to know exactly how far the Government has gotten in the implementation of the items from their 8 demands.
They ended their strike when the Prime Minister promised to implement most of them, and today, the President and the First Vice President of the union told the media that the PM's response has been inadequate, in their opinion.
Here's how they explained it:
Luke Palacio, 1st VP - BNTU
"We are seeing that the government continues to be intransigent. Imagine the disrespect they have shown to BNTU. We wrote to them last week. We wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to give us an update on where we are with our 8 demands, so that if we could have given any word of praise, we would have given the word of praise and where condemnation would have been due, we would have condemned as well. But you know what he did, he disrespected the Belize National Teachers Union and we will not stand up, we will not sit down idly and take disrespect."
"The Prime Minister continues on his agenda of divide and conquer. The BNTU did not ask, with due respect madam president of the PSU, to include them in our letter. We did not ask the APSSM to approve a letter we are sending to PM. We did not ask the National Trade Union Congress of Belize to be included in our request. We were asking you. You give is an answer because we gave you 8 demands. Respond to us. And that would have been the respectable thing to do. But he has copied his response to these other unions as if though they could lash BNTU."
Hon. Elena Smith, President, BNTU
"We must now be more vigilant in our monitoring of these demands to ensure that implementation is done to its fullest as we celebrate this tremendous milestone we remind those in power that our strike continues to be on hold. Should be wrong button be pushed, this documentary launched can easily become the launching of phase 2 of our strike. We therefore advise those of you in authority, those of you who believe that you are gods, we advise you to thread our territory carefully."
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