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They are advised to make Wednesday a half day for teachers so that they can attend in the afternoon. We spoke via telephone with the president of the Belmopan Branch of the BNTU who told us why the invitation was inappropriate and tantamount to union busting - which has been reinforced in a signed communiqué sent by the joint negotiating team. The branch president told us more:...

Voice of: Corlan Galvez, BNTU President - Belmopan Branch
"We from Belmopan saw it as something political. We decided that we are not going to attend this meeting because when we have our general meeting here in Belmopan we don't invite 8-10 schools, the meeting is for everybody. The discussion of the negotiation is for everybody in Belmopan - all the teachers in Belmopan, not 8,9,10 schools at all, everybody because for us we are wondering why Mr. Saldivar calling a meeting when he has no connections with the negotiation team from government side nor from the union side. Maybe if it was Patrick Faber having this meeting then we would have seen - maybe he had something to say, but what can John Saldivar tell us? They like to say that teachers always have holiday - now you would take us out of class to a meeting to talk about the bargaining agreement that we think you don't have any idea about because you have never negotiated with present negotiating team."

Jules Vasquez
"Do you all view this as an attempt at union busting?"

Voice of: Corlan Galvez
"Of course yes because if these schools have decided that they will go to the meeting we will have to answer to the other schools, we would have to answer to them why did you go and why did we get invited."

The joint union's response says quote, "the team views this as an attempt at Union busting and therefore we advise teachers to boycott the meeting by not attending or to go to their respective schools during the meeting." They also condemn it as an act of bad faith by the government.