Today, after over 3 months in court, the Belize National Teachers Union has won a victory against the Ministry of Education. Their pay for the 11-day teachers strike will not be cut. But, they've got to give something too: they've agreed to work 6 extra school days so that all schools get the required number of days to complete an entire school year.
This is the outcome after the Chief Justice ordered that both the Teachers and the Government should try to resolve the dispute through court ordered mediation. That ended last month, and this morning, the Chief Justice was finally able to put it into a perfected order. This means that teachers and students are being expected to report for classes for 3 more days before going on the Easter Break, and 3 more before going on the summer break.
It's an outcome which the BNTU was hoping for, because a loss would have caused the strike teachers to lose about 3 million dollars in collective wages. Their President told the press how he feels about it:
Luke Palacio, President - BNTU
"We were asked then to go to mediation. We've completed that process and today the judge perfected the order in terms of what we have agreed to. What we have agreed to, both parties have agreed that and I need to say this even before we go on, that we had insisted during the strike that we were prepared to make up the time. It was just the manner in which the ministry acted that pushed us, if you will, to decide that we're not going to go with that and we came to court."
"We have now agreed that we are going to make up those days as an order of the court, based on our mediation that we are going to give back 6 full days of classes; the first three will be done on the first 3 days of the Easter break; and the second three will be done on the first 3 days of our July vacation period."
"The ministry has agreed with our position that they should not dock our salaries and so that is now a given. Our salaries will not be docked. The ministry has abandoned that position based on our agreement at the mediation. And so basically that is where we stand. We will encourage our members and our teachers to make up the time as have been agreed simply because the issue we had was not so much making up the time, but the matter of the ministry docking our salaries or attempting to."
Reporter
"However, on the streets, people will think you took on the mighty government of Belize, the Ministry of Education and won."
Luke Palacio, President - BNTU
"Well I guess that is the purpose of unions. We need to be able to in this day and age, once we know we are acting within our right, then somebody has to be able to stand up to whoever as long as you are protecting the rights of workers, as long as you are protecting the rights of citizens and we must not be afraid. Because calling out a government or calling out anybody in authority, does not necessarily mean that you hate them. What is means that you are not in agreement with whatever wrong they are doing and therefore we need to be able to correct them from time to time and hopefully, again, they will see the other side and it benefits the country in the final analysis."
Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"Is it a concern of the council of management that because of this standoff between the principals of the BNTU and the ministry that the relationship maybe irreparable damaged?"
Luke Palacio, President - BNTU
"I don't think so. As a matter of fact we've been meeting with ministry, we've been to whatever boards or bodies we serve on, jointly with the Ministry of Education. We have at all their meetings and the relationship is cordial, so I don't think that there is any ill feeling. We trust again that when we raise issues that concern us and concern our teachers, that again, good judgement, common sense will prevail and we discuss those matters before it gets out of hand."
So again, that amendment to the school year is that there will be 3 more school days before the Easter Break, and 3 more before the summer break in July.
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