Uwahnie Martinez
The Christian Workers Union which represents bank employees has joined the chorus of condemnation against the Dangriga Branch of the First Caribbean Bank. Recently, a bank employee, Uwahnie Martinez, was written by the management instructing that she desist from using her native tongue when conducting transactions with customers. While a meeting has been requested with the CWU to address the matter, it is unclear when the sit-down will be held since the union has rejected the terms under which that meeting should be held. The bank, it seems, would prefer to have the issue of speaking Garifuna dealt with separately from that of Martinez’s subsequent resignation. The situation has caused an uproar in Dangriga and elsewhere within the wider Garifuna community. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
The issue of Uwahnie Martinez being prohibited from speaking Garifuna at her workplace at CIBC FirstCaribbean’s Dangriga Branch has raised the ire of the Garifuna community at home and abroad. While FirstCaribbean’s Country Manager Glen Smith declined an interview with News Five to comment on the issue, Audrey Matura-Shepherd, the outspoken president of the Christian Workers Union, which represents the bank’s employees, condemn the position of the lending institution.
Audrey Matura-Shepherd, President, Christian Workers Union
“The employees of First Caribbean bank are members of the Christian Worker’s Union. The issue that they are having right now in terms of discrimination against people speaking Garifuna has been brought to the union and so as the president of the union, CWU has been made abreast of it and we are looking into it. What has happened the bank wrote me and asked me for a meeting to deal only with the Garifuna issue and they wanted to have a separate meeting to meet with the person who is the victim in this situation. We at the union took the position that we will not have two separate meetings and we are not going to have a meeting that affects any member without that member present. So we wrote a letter to the bank and said can we have one meeting. We are still awaiting their response. We have since written them another letter and asked them to give us all documentation that is relevant to this case. They have not responded yet because it is beyond just the discrimination in terms of the language, but we believe that our client, our member, has been victimized in other forms. So we are waiting for that documentation. We have not received it; after we receive it, we will go to a meeting because there has to be full and frank disclosure if we are going to discuss one’s rights. This is your right to work; this is your right as an employee.”
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
The matter came to light recently when Dr. Theodore Aranda, a resident and well-known activist from that municipality, gave an exclusive account detailing instances in which Martinez has been reportedly reprimanded for speaking her native tongue with others while transacting business at the bank.
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
“I see that the bank went ahead and issued a press release and if you read the press release properly, you would see that one, we never made any claims that anybody was suspended—at least not from the union. This matter took a life of its own before when we got into it, clearly there were details that we didn’t know of at the time. But if you read the release clearly, it is saying that the official language is encouraged to be spoken in public spaces and that you can speak your own language in private conversations. Anybody who’s smart enough will understand that that means don’t speak your native language in our public space and public space is when you are dealing with customers. The reality is that Belize is a very diverse country. I am Spanish and when I meet my friends that speak Spanish, I automatically break into Spanish. I am a service oriented person. I speak the language of the people when I am dealing with them. It is a simple case of that. But like I said, it is deeper than that and I think the bank and everybody in Belize need to be minded that under United Nations convention on the Right of Indigenous People—Garifuna are classified as indigenous people. These articles of the convention guarantee you the right to your identity and to speak your language at all times.”
Interestingly, the bank, in corresponding with Matura-Shepherd has requested that the matter not be discussed publicly, including in the realm of social media.
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
“I did get a letter from the Director of Industrial and Employee Relations from their headquarters which is in Barbados and I really think it is high-minded. It shows you the issues that I have to deal with where they actually believe that they can write me and tell me not to make any comment—not on Facebook and anything else—when they issued their own press release as well and they never consulted me. They are talking about partnership, but partnership in this situation goes both ways. And if there was a genuine partnership, I would say publicly that when they decided to go after our member, they should have also had the courtesy to contact us. We have never stifled them to do what they want to do.”
Matura-Shepherd says that matter of CIBC FirstCaribbean’s restriction fails to take into consideration the demography of Dangriga.
Audrey Matura-Shepherd
“It is vastly affected by the demography because you can’t go set up shop in a community that is predominantly Garifuna and not expect to cater to the needs of that. it is good customer service for you to be able to deal with people in the language that they are comfortable with. I have gone to Corozal to do business at the bank and we’ve spoken in only Spanish, and that’s different banks of course and I have never had a problem with it. I have had to represent clients that speak only Spanish; I’ve had to represent Mexicans that speak only Spanish and no bank has told us that the clients or the customers or the employees cannot speak Spanish. I think it is a matter of sensitivity and we are hoping for this individual that we are able to go deeper and find out what’s happening. But like I said, it is more than just the issue of the language.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
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