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7News was at the labour office to speak with both sides, and here's what they had to say on the compromises they both made to break the weeks-long impasse:

Evan "Mose" Hyde - President, CWU
"Today's meeting, very positive. I would say that we have moved a good ways. They got a chance to look at our counter proposal, and significant thing is that they are prepared, once we have done all the work with the numbers, to utilize the adjustments in the hourly rate to neutralize any earnings loss that our members are going to be faced with. And for us, that is a big issue."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez - CEO, Port of Belize
"The proposal put forth by the union, which is just the basis of the hours of work, not necessarily the detail, is quite acceptable, and we've looked at it. And I would say, 80-85%, 90% of it can be considered. Of course, some negotiation has to be done with it, but I believe that both parties are in agreement that that initial proposal is possible. Discussions can happen, and I think that we have made significant progress there."

Evan "Mose" Hyde
"But, even bigger than that is that they have agreed that they will be in solidarity with us in asking the Minister to make the exception for stevedores as a unique profession. So that, even though our counterproposal makes some adjustments, we still want it to be on the record that the stevedores are a unique profession, and so that whatever that final agreement is with the hours that we will work, and the ceiling on it, that we have flexibility in that. And so, that is an important position for them to take along with us."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez
"It was first the suggestion - and it's a part of the proposal on the hours of work - where union is saying that they are prepared to work the 15 hours, as the law prescribes for. However, if there are circumstances, where, for example, if a ship is 36 hours, they would like to do two 18's, instead of breaking 15, 15, and a smaller - you understand. So, they were proposing to push it to 18. That's their proposal. I think that the AG had mentioned that changes can be made, however, I still believe that there are some limitations to those changes. But I'm not an attorney. It is for the AG now to determine whether he can actually make the changes that he said he could. We agreed to the 18, simply because, in my view, 15 hours and 18 hours is not much. I think that within a human capacity, that is still something within reason, and it is a far cry from 50 and 60 hours."

Evan "Mose" Hyde
"We have to get in touch with the Minister because we seek an agreement from her that they are going to put that exception that the stevedores are a unique profession. And that is important because, as I expressed to the PBL team, this is not a thing where you only negotiate one time, and then it's forever and ever. At some point, there's going to be an owner of the port, and it's possible - even though I said them I think it's gonna be very difficult to imagine a group more difficult than them - but somebody might come and want to revisit this issue and challenge our members on this. And so, having that in law is going to be very important for us."

In a press release from the CWU, the President is quoted as saying, "We now feel confident that sufficient progress has been made in our negotiations with the Port of Belize Limited (PBL), to conclude a Collective Agreement for our Stevedore Members, that Christian Workers Union has today withdrawn our 21-days Industrial Action Notice."

Now, that doesn't mean that all matters are resolved. You'll also remember that in our last interview with both the Port's CEO and the CWU President, they foreshadowed that even after this hours of work issue was resolved, there was potential for another major labour dispute to flare up between them. The Port was insisting that the stevedores and the CWU should be prepared to further negotiate the reduction of number of stevedores on the gangs that work the containers from the ships. The CWU and the stevedores were adamant that this would not happen. You'll remember President Evan "Mose" Hyde describing their refusal to reconsider this to be as strong as "titanium".

Today, both sides announced that the Port has decided to withdraw that issue:

Evan "Mose" Hyde - President, CWU
"And then, even more significantly - well not more significantly because we thought would have been a potential impasse, the matter of gang reduction, the Port has said they are withdrawing that. So, they are no longer requesting for any gang reduction to take place."

Daniel Ortiz
"Why the change of heart?"

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez - CEO, Port of Belize
The situation of the gang size was always something that was to be negotiated, to be discussed. We gave it some consideration. We had a caucus, and we deliberated on it, and we believe that at this point, in order to assist the overall agreement, and moving forward, I think that it's best that we put that behind us for now. So, that's really what we did."

Now, when we did this interview this morning, the CWU's stevedore members hadn't yet decided to withdraw the strike action - that came later this evening.

So, before that happened, we asked the CEO and the President about the 21-day notice:

Evan "Mose" Hyde - President, CWU
"I would be lying if I did not say that this morning was a very significant morning in our negotiations, and now, we have to go and deliberate on what it is we have accomplished, and then make a decision on the matter of the strike."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, but in principle, it seems as though most of the things have been resolved. So, there may no longer be a need for the strike. Would you agree or disagree?"

Evan "Mose" Hyde
"Well the same way that we determined the strike is the same we determine when to take it off. It's going to be based on our internal consensus, and then we move from there. We've given them the commitment that before 5 this evening, we are going to have a decision on that."

Arturo "Tux" Vasquez - CEO, Port of Belize
"At the end of the day, the strike should be off the table, and maybe everything goes back to normal. I think, initially, what we would want also is for us to go really back to our own negotiations, with maybe not even having to have the labour commissioner sitting in the meeting as well, you know. So, I really feel like we are pretty close to that, and I believe we will know a lot more about that, before the end of today."

Again, this evening, the CWU made the withdraw of the strike notice official when President Hyde wrote to Minister Barnett.

The CWU press release highlights several of the progress made since they invoked the 21-day strike notice.

Those include an acceptance by the Port of the CWU's counter proposal for the hours work. They say that it will include changes in the hourly rates that stevedores are paid, and a transportation allowance to offset any losses in stevedores earnings, due to the new shift.

The Port has maintained that it could no-longer allow the stevedores to continue to break the labour laws which mandates that employees should only work 15-hour shifts. The stevedores were concerned that if the Port cut their hours down, then their earnings would suffer.

It was a sticking point for both sides, who initially refused to budge, until the Labor Minister of State, Dr. Carla Barnett, and her team intervened. She got them to return to the negotiating table, which later led to them working out their differences.

Also, the Port is no longer asking for the stevedore gang size to be reduced. Additionally, the port will pay stevedores all the back pay from 2015-2018, for salary increases which were due, but never took effect. Finally, the CWU says there is an undertaking from the Minister of Labour to establish stevedoring as a special class under the Labour Law, following joint lobbying by the Port and the Union.

The release ends by thanking Dr. Barnett and the Labour Department for their role in helping them to resolve their differences with the Port.