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Earlier this week the Belize National Teachers’ Union held a press conference to – among other things – demand a pay raise. Today we got a response on that demand and ultimatum from the Minister of Education Patrick Faber.

Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“It is in the process and the PSU President I am told was made aware and other union Presidents were made aware that this was something that is in the pipeline so it was kind of out of left field that the we thought the comments of the BNTU came, the last resort. I have had for instance several meetings with the BNTU, one as recent as one week ago before their press conference and at no point in any of those meetings did they ever bring up the collective bargaining agreement. So it was only through the email a couple days before the press conference that they sought my intervention to say what’s happening here Minister can you check on this for us and immediately afterwards we have a press conference giving the government an ultimatum. So I did find that a bit strange.”

Jules Vasquez,
“Sir but they issued an ultimatum and you don’t seem to be ultimatum response pace, you seem to be taking a measured response to their ultimatum.”

Hon. Patrick Faber,
“Well there is a financial concern here. I think that all Belizean will understand that there is a serious financial crunch, we are in a recession as has been pointed over and over again. There are financial implications to some of their requests that have been made, the unions jointly, so we have to be careful. We have to be able to give a response based on what monies we know are available. People might not be understanding but budget time is coming up and there is a serious gap that this government needs to plug and so it would be irresponsible to just jump up and say we can agree on certain things without taking into consideration the financial implications.

We are doing things so it is not to say that if we can find ways, we know the cost of living out here is high and we know that it is indeed a difficult time to survive, not only in Belize but in any other part of the world, and so it is imperative that we sit down and dialogue and come up with something that is agreeable to both sides. We are not running away from that.”

Faber also expressed his disagreement with the union’s position that corporal punishment they say should not be illegalized in the amendment to the Education Act. Faber says that on that one, they will agree to disagree.

Hon. Patrick Faber,
“I have said to them very sternly and that is I believe what lands me in trouble with them but I certainly as the Minister of Education am not prepared to listen to that claim of keeping in corporal punishment just because we have to keep it in because it is a comfort for teachers. As I’ve indicated, I believe we’ve given enough time for anybody who wants to come up with other strategies to have done so. You will remember that it was in 2000 when I was a very young teacher that the union opposed the removal of corporal punishment from the then proposal for the new Education Act and insisted that we get more time to find alternative strategies. That was ten years ago and ten years later and nothing has been done by the union to try to make any such alternative proposal.”

Jules Vasquez,
“I think they say the government should do it.”

Hon. Patrick Faber,
“Well that is fair and I have pointed out that we have done some things in order to make sure that we have an alternative strategy.”

Faber stressed that as the law presently stands only principals – not teachers - can engage in corporal punishment which he says is not usually how it happens.