Yesterday we told you about Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley decision to privatize the council security services. Mayor Bradley says that is an effort to reduce staff and cost. The contract to provide the council security services has been given to the current Security Manager at the council, Hiram Longworth, through his company, Rangers Security. More than thirty security officers have been given their walking papers but Mayor Bradley says that they will be immediately hired by Rangers Security. The Christian Workers Union which is the recognized bargaining unit for the workers is concerned. The CWU says that the Belize City Council failed to comply with section 45 sub-section 3 paragraph A of the Labor Amendment Act number 3 of 2011 which mandatorily requires the Council to quote, “inform as early as possible but no later than one month from the date of the existence of any circumstances,” end of quote. In a letter sent to the Labour Commissioner, Ivan Williams, the Christian Workers Union is requesting the Labour Department to ask the City Council to reconsider the implementation of their redundancy program until after consultation with the Union. The Christian Workers Union is also requesting that the Labour Department intervene to mandate the consultations and to have the Belize City Council postpone its date of termination slated for January 31st. President for the Christian Workers Union, Audrey Matura Shepherd, spoke to Love News.
AUDREY MATURA SHEPHERD
“It is unfortunate that the Mayor said some of those things because he is outright telling a lie; (1) the Mayor never gave notice to the union as is required by law; he decided to put his own spin on the legislation; the law is saying plain that prior to you making the decision and making it known that you are making the employees redundant, you need to contact their bargaining unit – that is Section 45 subsection 3 of the Labour Amendment Act No. 3 of 2011. So, he had to have told us before so that we are part of the negotiation and the reason the law states that is because then the union gets to go in, gets to see what you are working on, what is this efficiency you are talking about and to see how you can absorb the employees or as many of them back into the system so that all these people are not left without a job. (2) We have seen the letters of termination from all the employees and not one of them has been told that they will be rehired by the new company; that is absolutely important; you can say anything but when you put it in black and white, we know it is so and so we wrote to the Mayor and we asked him where is the agreement because he keeps saying that is one of the conditions that the Council decided to privatize the security; we have not been able to get that response since but even more important, I think what the Mayor doesn’t understand is that when you hold public office, you don’t just unilaterally decide who is your co-worker, your colleague, your friend and you give them a contract; you don’t just do that – there has been no tendering process, there has been no transparency, no accountability as to how this person is getting this contract. As far as we know, that person, Mr. Hiram Longsworth, right now, he is the employee there managing the security unit and now, unilaterally, the Mayor through his Council and whoever voted for it are saying, here is a contract, you deal with it now. That is not how this thing works; you’re dealing with public funds, you have to put the tendering process out and you need to see what the best amount is. And the fourth thing that I am very much concerned about is that the Mayor says that they are going to be saving a lot of money and it is always good to save and be efficient and if you say that you are paying over seven hundred thousand dollars presently for personnel salary and security on a whole and that is being cut by fifty percent – you make sense of it; these people are barely taking home seven hundred or a thousand dollars a month – that is slave wages. So, it means that the company will either be hiring fewer workers, paying more slave wages and clearly cannot absorb all thirty six workers that have been terminated and so, that is my immediate response to what the Mayor has said. Also, I want the Mayor to know that by law, he needs to meet with the union. They never told the Labour Commissioner or this officer we spoke to that they are going through a redundancy program and x, y and zee. By the way, that contact happened last week when the letter was being written; the law is clear that one month prior to you declaring these people redundant, you need to contact the Labour Commissioner and their bargaining agent and unless I am being misinformed, I am still waiting.”
HIPOLITO NOVELO
“He says that you have misread the Labour Act and there is no further month requirement; that is what he says in his letter to the CWU.”
AUDREY MATURA SHEPHERD
“Mayor Bradley is an attorney like myself and I won’t play with words; the law says that prior to you becoming aware of your decision to make these people redundant, one month at minimum, the law says, you must contact the bargaining unit and that is the union. He made it seems that now that we made the decision that while it is in progress, within a month, during that month we should do it.”
The Union has planned a press conference for tomorrow morning.
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