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President Evan "Mose" Hyde clarified this today in a press conference.

Evan "Mose" Hyde, President, CWU
"The first thing we want to say that we are not on strike. We want to emphatically put it out there that in fact over the weekend, our gangs have been working vessels that have come to be worked. We have a particular contention that has resulted in disruption on a particular vessel. The MV Aries which came into dock last week and this is a ship that requires more than 15 hours to be worked. And since our CBA of August 2020, the CBA has determined as agreed between ourselves and PBL that a gang, a single gang, works that boat for 15 hours consecutively and then it takes a 9 hour rest and then it returns to finish it. Now what started to happen last year is that as a good faith gesture, as a result of conversations that we had with the shipper, there was a two gang approach to this boat. That has been withdrawn as a result of a vote taken by our members to go back to the CBA and to comply with what is required by that CBA when we are working a boat that requires more than 15 hours work. No other decision has been taken by our members all other vessels are being worked."

"We also want to say very categorically that we push back completely this very unjust, this very vicious assessment of CWU and by extension our members and it's not the first time that this characterization has been floated that somehow we are responsible for all manners of unpleasant things to the cost of goods and to the economy and that our decision to stand up represents some type of extortion, some type of responsibility, some type of carelessness, some type of indifference to anybody else. We want to provide ample indication that nothing could be further from the truth. The stevedores have been acting in absolutely reasonable and responsible methods consistently and we want to say that again to have people understand, there are those who say working two gangs is more efficient, again, that has never been the reason why that decision was taken last week, to be a statement against working as two gangs."

Hyde also explained that the reason for reverting back to the guidelines in the CBA is because it's been over a year since the Tribunal ruling on the redundancy package for the stevedores as a result of bulk sugar moving down south to the Big Creek Port and yet, they have not received any word on when they will negotiate the terms of the payment.

Evan "Mose" Hyde, President, CWU
"What has happened in fact we will show you documents written by our attorney to PBL's attorney presenting an agreement in principle to actually include in the CBA working as two gangs, that was put in front of PBL and in fact the only requirement, the only condition that was being stipulated was we had no interest in signing a three party agreement, we wanted a very specific agreement with PBL, we did not want to be a part of any co-joined agreement that deals with any tariff increase and you will see that our attorney wrote in April and you will that there was a follow up email two or three months thereafter again emphasizing the fact that stevedores were willing to make this adjustment to their CBA in a spirit to ensure that we were looking after the interest of the client."

"And so we are over a year, 14 months, 15 months since that tribunal's ruling, 15 months of which we saw about 10 months of our members working two gangs, working in a spirit of guess what, make we just try do this, even though the employer has turned down an opportunity to get this in black and white. The employer turned down the opportunity to seal this and we have shared these documents with the shippers, we want to make sure that whatever you feel, whatever your thoughts are, you cannot come to some conclusion that stevedore membership and CWU have acted in a while that is rash that is knee-jerk, in fact we have had to beg of our members, man, we have to be patient."

So while the stevedores have been patient, they're ready to act, but before things get drastic, the union is pleading for PBL to come to the table and for the regulatory body to step in.

Evan "Mose" Hyde, President, CWU
"Now we wait for a response coming from the regulator and we get none. Our members are starting to demand what will we do. We said well members you have to decide what our options are and so there was a meeting and the members had a range of things they were feeling and they were encouraged, listen, we are stretched out, we have court cases, the union finances are being pressured, we have to find a responsible way forward, to register our dissatisfaction with the fact that the rule of law is failing them. And so they took the most available way to demonstrate, listen this thing is serious, and what did they do? They did what they have a constitutional right to do, to say listen, we are going to go with our contract that we have with you, that's all our members did and they are being characterized as being bad actors, as extorting, they are demanding what every citizen of Belize has a fair expectation to be theirs, that the rule of law is going to be fair with them."

"It is Tuesday, and we still have not, in fact not only have we not had any sense of when we're going to dialogue again, but there's been nothing, crickets coming out of the regulatory body."

"We know negotiations take two sides, but we know that negotiations only happen when you're actually doing it. We can't do it in our minds and we can't do it alone so we want to reach out publicly to PBL management, ownership, whatever it is, whatever form it is in, whatever they want to present, as a receivership, whoever, come around the table because the urgency of this situation, we can't wait until that vessel returns, we don't know what the client's intentions are."