NTUCB Plans To Flex Muscle For Labour Day

From retired workers still fighting for severance benefits to commuters and motorists feeling the strain of higher bus fares and fuel prices, the pressure on everyday Belizeans continues to build. Now, the National Trade Union Congress of Belize is calling on workers and the wider public to turn out in large numbers for its annual Labour Day march. NTUCB President Ella Waight says this year’s event will go beyond celebration, serving as a unified show of strength and a platform to highlight the growing challenges facing the country’s workforce. She explains.

 

Ella Waight, President, National Trade Union Congress of Belize

“Whenever we have a Labour Day March, the first most important item is to celebrate the workers, celebrate workers achievements, celebrate what the workers have contributed to this country from the past year to where we are currently. But this year we do realize there’s a lot of issues that we face as workers in this country. We have this severance campaign that we are doing right now. We have obviously the cost of living, which, relates to the increase of in petroleum, gas, et cetera, which then transcends into putting fuel into our vehicles and also the cost in the bus, the increase in bus fare. They also transcends into the cost of groceries that we purchase. We have issues such as workers who have not been still not receiving that minimum wage of five dollars per hour. We still have workers who are having issues with that. So it’s a opportunity again, for workers to congregate. It’s a holiday, so there is no excuse saying, we can’t make it because we have work. There is no excuse. We ask them to join us in the march. Going into the rally, the rally, we usually at the rallies what we have is all the presidents from all the unions give a short speech. And of course, each union have their own issues that they’re facing or they want to encourage members to ensure that they are keeping informed because a lot of them are going through negotiations at the moment. So it’s also an opportunity for the presidents to directly speak to their members and again to the citizens of this country because Labor Day is not limited to union members. We invite the public, we invite workers.”

 

The NTUCB is inviting food vendors who wish to operate at the rally to reach out and register with their office. The march starts at 8:30 a.m. on Friday and ends at the Birds Isle for a unified rally.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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