3 weeks ago
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Leaders of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize and senior officials from the Ministry of Immigration, Governance and Labour met last week to discuss a wide range of labour issues, including holiday pay, legislative reform and worker protections. The meeting was led by Minister Kareem Musa and included Chief Executive Officer Tanya Santos and Deputy Labour Commissioner Claire Lamb. Representing the NTUCB was President Ella Waight along with other union executives and representatives from the Public Service Union. At the top of the agenda was the interpretation of Section 117 of the Labour Act, which deals with payment for public and bank holidays. Union leaders raised concerns about inconsistent practices and sought clarification to ensure workers receive their full statutory entitlements. According to President Waight, the discussions were productive and resulted in an agreement to have quarterly meetings.
Ella Waight, President, NTUCB: “The agenda that day we discussed a great concern which affects every single worker in this country and that is the urgent legal clarification of holiday pay. That is under section 117 of the Labour Act whereby we know that especially for three days of the year that if you work to get double pay right but our concern is that even if you don’t work that day you still get that day’s pay. Labor law dictates that you get paid that day. Someone who works that they would get should get double that day pay but now they’re only paying the law how it’s interpreted you’re only paid one more hundred percent pay for that day when it should be a two hundred percent pay for that day because you already get that that day pay if you don’t go in to work. I’m hoping it’s clear how I’m explaining it. Let’s take for example an example you make a hundred dollars for that day. If you don’t go to work, you still get that $100, right? On Christmas day, you still make that. But if you work on that day, they will only pay $200 for that day. So you don’t get double pay, double your pay, you get one, half of that pay that you would get that day. We’re just saying that the act needs to be clear so that we can ensure that workers of this country get what they’re supposed to get on those days. What the next action will be is that we have to write them a proposal on how we interpret the law to be and the Ministry of Labor has promised that he will look into the matter to see if we can get a clarification as to the way we interpret it. So we have to go back and look at this again and hopefully it will come up with the best interests of workers.”
The group also looked at a broader review of labour legislation, including the Settlement of Disputes in Essential Services Act and the implementation of the Occupational Safety and Health Bill, as well as preparations for upcoming international labour engagements.
Waight says the talks also ventured into modernization of outdated provisions in Belize’s labour framework.
Ella Waight, President, NTUCB: “For example, there’s a law that says women are not supposed to work at night. Something as simple as that, right? That is not relevant anymore. That was many, many decades ago. So we need to ensure that we get this process completed. Do you remember the time when CWU was being sued by the then persons that owned, that was managing the port? That was because they were saying when you strike, if you have an illegal strike, the company can sue you for the loss of whatever losses they may have within the business. And I think that time the president was sued for a million dollars, some of the reps, and even CWU. We went to the court and it was until when the government bought over or took back, no they bought back over the port that that issue was resolved that they dropped the case. It would have been interesting in a way to see what would have been the outcome via the legal process. Because that happened because one part of the labor law dictated that members of a union cannot be sued once they’re acting in the best interest of the workers. But when a revision of that part of the law was done it did not include that small part. So they were using the second revision of the law which did not include that they could not be sued. So there’s two separate parts of the law, and of course an organization or entity would use a part that benefits them, right? So there’s things that needs to be combined looking back at the old law and to the revised one that was in, I think if I’m not mistaken, again in 2011 I think I’m not very sure of the date, but there are things that needs to be revised. There are laws in there that are well not relevant anymore.”
According to Minister Musa, the meeting as part of government’s commitment to ongoing engagement with social partners to strengthen worker protections while balancing economic realities.
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