Tonight, the faculty and staff of the University of Belize, represented
by their union, are calling for a long and honest conversation with the
University's President and Board. They want to talk about how UB will
weather and survive the global economic crisis.
The Union is alleging that the President has not consulted them about
the hard decisions to come over the coming weeks and months.
UB faculty and staff are concerned that they could face pay cuts, and
possible lay-offs for redundancy. But without any information coming
directly from the management, they are forced to wait, and hope that
they aren't the ones who will be sent home.
And that's why the UB Faculty and Staff Union is publicly complaining
that they shouldn't be kept in the dark because their members are the
ones who will be directly affected.
Yesterday, the General Secretary and the President wrote a letter to
the Board of Trustees demanding disclosure, as the bargaining agent for
the faculty and staff members who they represent.
In that letter, the union says, quote,
"the Board determined by a vote that the university was in a state
of financial exigency. No effects on the employees of the
university were indicated. This is unacceptable. It is clear that
the President has from the beginning excluded the union from this
process and in fact has not disclosed any financial information
that would provide us with the ability to make an informed
decision without any concrete information we are not in a position to
support any recommendations or any suggestion of any kind which is
tantamount to no transparency on the part of our employers."
End quote.
This evening in Belmopan, the President of the Union spoke about their
concerns:
Dr. Pio Saqui - President, UBFSU
"We all know we're in a pandemic, we all understand there is financial
crisis globally, Belize is not immune to this, UB is not immune to this
and we're expecting there are going to be some changes in the
university and some of those changes will have to be done to ensure the
survival of the university and that we can keep working and teaching
and providing the services the university provides. We have already
made so many communication to the president hoping for a professional
amicable conversation where we can actually consulted, so we can take
whatever measures necessary mutually, so that all parties involved can
come out in a positive way and that we can take the least hit as
possible. To date, that has not been able to happen, the president of
the University of Belize has basically ignored and essentially
disrespected the faculty and staff union. We have now asked the board
of directors, the same demands we have asked the president, which is
one, to invoke the protocol within the faculty and staff which is
approved by the board, which speaks directly to engaging financial
exigency or any kind of reorganisation of the university. We have two
requests from the university president, which is provide us the
financials. Let us look at the numbers together so that we can agree
indeed there is a financial exigency. That financial exigency was
declared 2 weeks ago by the board without proper consultation. We don't
know what the financials of the university looks like. What we know for
sure is the note from the financial secretary that indicates that there
will be a cut in subvention but that is neither here nor there until we
know how far we are from where we need to be in terms of finances.
Today we understand that the university board of trustees is meeting,
the meeting is ongoing right now, in which the president has made clear
that he will present his plan to the board, we don't know what that
plan is and we have written to the board, that we cannot agree to any
plan unless we are fully informed and formally engaged in the proper
process."
The Union has since called a press conference for tomorrow in Belmopan.
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