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But the prime minister doesn't see it that way - he says the frozen increments had to be sacrificed during COVID. Here's how he put it.

John Briceno, Prime Minister:
"I think that we have pointed out that as a government, we want to support the teachers, we want to give them more but there's only so much that we can give. Let me repeat again, presently the wage bill and pensions for the government of Belize which includes teachers and BDF and all the workers, about approximately 16,000 of them, is approximately close to $700 million. It's close to 50 cents of every recurrent dollar that we collect. With what we have offered, it would work out over 3 or 4, to work out, 3 years I think, to work out to about another 90 to 100+ million dollars. When that is enacted, the wage bill will go up to approximately $800 million dollars. Now, it's important for the public to understand, when we met with the unions, they were asking for 8%. We are in effect giving them 14.5% because we are raising their salaries and we are unfreezing two increments, each increment is approximately 3%, that would be 6% and you add the 8.5%, you're looking at 14.5%, that is what we're offering them. they ask for 8.5%, we give them 14.5%, yet they're still rejecting it, I don't think they're acting in good faith."

Reporter:
"The criticism is, how can it be considered a 14.5% increase when these increments were frozen and they're being unfrozen, not only to meet up with inflation but also to put the teachers' salaries where it was supposed to be in the first place."

John Briceno, Prime Minister:
"But this is where they're not being truthful. When we asked them to take a 10% cut and to freeze increment, we're asking for everyone to make a sacrifice. during COVID, they got their full 100% salaries and they were not teaching most of the time or some of them teaching online. So they got their full salary. We had, it was over 30%, an unemployment rate of about 30%, another 30% of underemployment, that people working the full week were not getting their full salaries. I remember the people from LoveFM got a 50% cut during that time and they could not go back to their bosses and tell them give me back what you took away. That's a part of the sacrifice that is asked from everyone. So they were to sacrifice also. And now they want to come back and say, we want it. We acted in good faith and said alright. That was something that was given up, we asked them for a pay cut for 3 years, we did it for one year. We asked them wage fees, for 3 years, we did it for 2, with the emoluments. So now here we are in good faith saying we'll give you back, so in effect they made almost no sacrifice during that time."