The House of Representatives met for the last time for 2013 at the National Assembly in Belmopan. And there were a few important matters to that were dealt with and Bills that were passed, but there were also some fireworks. During the course of the day’s proceedings, the National Executive of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize, NTUCB, who were seated in the gallery, disrupted the proceedings just after the Prime Minister had made his introductory remarks. The NTUCB’s gripe had to do what they feel is the Government’s slow manner in introducing and passing the Occupational Safety and Health Bill, and today, their Executive members were not silent about it. It required the Speaker of the House to engage the police assigned at the House to remove the members from the gallery. This was how it transpired.
Following their removal from the House, reporters met the members outside. Led by their President, Dylan Reneau and Vice President, Marvin Mora, they said that there are a number of reasons why they had to do what they did today. They maintain that the work has been done and the social partners have agreed to the passage of the Bill but yet there have been no strides to introduce it and to pass it as law. The NTUCB executive members went as far as saying that they intend to make 2014 a year of action over concerns that they feel are being deliberately ignored.
DYLAN RENEAU
“We have had the Occupational Safety and Health Bill in front of Cabinet for some time now and in fact, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labor have promised the NTUCB, and we have it on tape, they promised to introduce that Bill and pass the Occupational Safety and Health Bill. We have seen bills come after our bill and get passed through the House, so, we had to make a very strong statement and this is just the first step because as we said from our Annual General Meeting, the year, 2014 will be the year of action. The bill is important because we have some very archaic legislation on the books right now that deal with safety and health issues. We have had the worker in BSI that was burnt and actually died thereafter because of some issues at the work place. What we are saying is that we are seeing more precarious jobs in Belize and we want the legislation to protect workers; we also look at the Social Security Act; they have been passing people off with, instead of occupational injuries they have been giving them sick leave and that’s a different benefit. So, there are so many things that are captured in this Occupational Safety and Health Bill that would benefit the workers and would benefit the country because if employers have sick workers then they can’t get any productivity.”
MARVIN MORA
“It’s a signal that 2014 we mean business; we are not here to play. These are our people that are getting hurt out there; it’s our people who are on the line every day. It’s our social security money that is being depleted because of the fact that we are paying out too much which comes down to organizational safety and health. If we can pass these laws we can have benefits for everybody. We will see the ripple effects of those benefits translated to every single aspect of our economy”.
LOCAL REPORTER
“Do you think you got the Prime Minister’s attention?”
DYLAN RENEAU
“I think we did get his attention and we also wanted to get the nation’s attention. I’m telling you in 2014 there will be much more activism on the part of NTUCB. You can say that we were the ones who put this government in power because we are the workers that voted and we wanted a change and we basically were promised that our issues would have been dealt with and nothing has been dealt with substantially and so enough is enough.”
MARVIN MORA
“I think you remember the current Prime Minister stating that there was a time for civil disobedience; well we hope that that doesn’t reach to that stage, if it does reach to that stage NTUCB will be ready.”
The NTUCB, which held its Annual General Meeting last weekend, also joined hands with the Vision Inspired by the People in calling on the Government to sign onto the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
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