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President Mose?
posted (April 9, 2018)
The Christian Workers Union held its Annual General Meeting on Saturday, and the highlight of the event was the election of a new president.

Dale Trujeque, who won last year's election in February, only served a little over 13 months until he stepped down due to personal reasons.

So, the post became vacant, and 3 candidates emerged. They were Wilmore Staine, who ran for the post last year against Trujeque, former COLA President Moses Sulph, and popular radio and tv personality Evan Mose Hyde.

You'll know Hyde as the host of the KREM morning television talk show, WUB. He's been a big supporter of the Belize National Teachers Union, and on Saturday, he joined them as a fellow trade unionist when he won the presidency.

Today, we got a chance to speak with him about his surprising but decisive victory in the election for president. Here's what he had to say:

Evan Mose Hyde, New CWU President
"Friendship with long time member of the union stevedore, Ras Pitta basically been very close with the journey of the stevedores and close with the ups and downs of the Christian Workers Union and I think that really, along with a consciousness that I love being on the ground and wanting to be engaged and a strong belief that we achieve thing better as a collective fighting for change and fighting for what is right. It was an AGM with an election post that was vacant, the post of presidency being vacated by Dale Trujeque who had to leave for personal reasons before his time was up and so that was a position that had to be determine along with a couple others. The post of presidency has 3 candidates. Myself, Wilmore Staine and Moses Sulph - I was a last minute entry into the process. Didn't do any kind of campaigning per say. Primarily most of the voting was done by proxy and so I am very appreciative of the fact that many people who I didn't really speak to personally who I might not even know personally voted for me and I feel the weight of that expectation to do my best."

Hyde easily topped the poles with 328 votes. Wilmore Staine got 72 votes, and the final candidate, Moses Sulph got 39 votes.

So, you'll be aware that most of his professional experience is as a member of the media and entertainment industry. He's often on national television as a social commentator, giving his views on controversial issues of urgent national interest. But, entering the labour movement is a new venture for Hyde, and so, we asked him about what direction he intends to lead the CWU in:

Evan Mose Hyde, New CWU President
"I work in the media. I don't have much experience. In fact I have no experience with collective bargaining agreement and negotiations. It's not my strength. The previous presidents, in the case of Audrey Matura, she was a lawyer. In the case of Dale Trujeque, he is a unionist and so my strength or what is perceive to be my strength is that I want to communicate that internally that becoming stronger makes us better at negotiating, makes us better at defending what is right, benefits or in instances where workers have been wrong, try to have that address. I believe that when we are internally strong, when we have a buy-in from all the entities, because you know the unique thing about the Christian Workers Union is that it covers various professions."

"I have consistently addresses what I think to be its greatest challenge that it has these multiple entities across the nation with fundamentally different in outlook and what they are doing. You have the grassroots energy of the stevedores, you have the professional class of people who works at Central Bank, and Social Security. How to bridge that? How to get them to see in each other that there is common ground on which they stand and that even what is perceive to be challenge that is its diversity is actually a strength, because when you get those 2 movements of workers together and they are able to say listen, you might lift in the containers and I might sit behind a desk, but workers' rights is our common denominator. Getting that message through is going to require a lot of effort and it will require consistency and commitment."

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