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Ivan Williams, Labour Commissioner
"Yes Andrea there was a very important meeting today with the persons who claim that they are employees of National Transport and Belbus. The two companies who are under receivership. Basically there are concern as I mention the last time as to where they stand with respect to their employment status and if they are terminated what next in terms of termination benefits and I was able to get information from the receiver that in fact the busses will not be running and in effect, actually he has confirm that the services have been terminated of the employees and I share that with the workers or the proposed workers that their services have been terminated."

Phillip Jones, Former Operations Manager, National Transport
"It's not what we expected what came out of the meeting that the commissioner has assured us that the labor department is doing everything necessary to ensure that we receive our benefits."

Andrea Polanco
"So at this time 275 employees are no longer employed and so they will have to go and seek employment elsewhere."

Phillip Jones, Former Operations Manager, National Transport
"You know at least we have some closure because we were promise by the receiver that business would have been resume the 28 and it seems now that that hope is lost and for like myself we can put this behind us and try to start over and we have some sort of closure that there will be no more employment at national transport so we need to find something to try to sustain our family."

Andrea Polanco
"But tell me Phillip do you think it's fair to the 275 employees that they were told that the receivers would resume operations and there was a possibility that they will get back their jobs only to hear now that they have been terminated. Do you think it's unfair to them?"

Phillip Jones, Former Operations Manager, National Transport
"Well I think it's very unfair on the receiver part that the very first start the receiver has been very disingenuous, I believe he had misled us and it's unfortunate playing such sort of games, he has his position but we have hope and confidence."

Ivan Williams, Labour Commissioner
"We still have not been able to definitively declare who are the employees of National Transport and Belbus. But we were able to gather along with the workers to agree on a number of things that we could probably look at to ascertain, because remember the official of the company is still somewhere where we don't know where it is and so we've listen to them, we've assured them that we will do all that is within our power to ensure that their rights are protected and so on and so we have agreed on a number of things which I don't really want to share with the public in terms of how we will bypass this issue of definitively declaring who are the employees but that's something that we will be working on and so by sometime next week Wednesday we are hopeful that we have enough information on which we can have a more meaningful discussion with the receiver in terms of termination and benefits."

And so while the Labour Commissioner is working to get those benefits, the workers now have to move on. But it's not easy; they were really holding on to the hope that they'd get their jobs back and the few we spoke to today were devastated:…

Andrea Polanco
"How you feel right now?"

Jimmy Valdarez, Former Employee - NTSL
"Well I can't explain, just a feeling that you can't explain. You have no job, you have family to feed, you have kids. I just hope the man is watching the news and it just can't be explain. So long I have been waiting to get a job now, we were sitting down for them to come back say that we got a job for you but nothing has happen like that so we just have to say that we hope they pay us for our benefits and so on because if we have to carry it to another level then we just have to carry it to another level."

Fidel Cocom, Former Employee - NTSL
"I have been working with national transport since 2006, that's 5 years ago."

Andrea Polanco
"So today they tell you no more job. How you feel?"

Fidel Cocom, Former Employee - NTSL
"Well I feel very sad having working with them a long time and it's hard for me to start a new job and to find it is the problem. I have to feed my family and I was waiting for this for 5-6 weeks for them to me that I am fired or I will continue this work. Today we get this message that we are fired and it's very hard for us."

Andrea Polanco
"So from here where will you go? What will you do? Do you have any kind of plans?"

Fidel Cocom, Former Employee - NTSL
"Right now my plan is to find a job and try to bring the money in."

Tyrone Gillett, Former Employee - NTSL
"The next step is try to look for a job now. I just hope one of the brothers would have sympathy for me give me a job with them. Who so ever."

Andrea Polanco
"So you have your family, I mean you have not been working for the past month. How will you manage in these coming days?"

Tyrone Gillett, Former Employee - NTSL
"I have to keep on trying until I find something or somebody call me or come up with something for me until."

Andrea Polanco
"So you are just hoping for this benefits, hope to get a job soon."

Tyrone Gillett, Former Employee - NTSL
"Only that I can do right now, I can't do nothing much better, just try until I find something."

Philip Jones says he wants to appeal to the receiver and the Belize Bank to deal fairly with the employees so that they get the benefits they are due. As noted in the interview, documentation remains a problem….