Employers, Workers Pressured to Find Common Ground in Labor Talks

Workplace issues took center stage today, but this wasn’t your typical lecture. The Labor Department brought workers and employers together at ITVET for a straight talk on rights, responsibilities, and the future of work. The BCCI, representing over six thousand members, joined as the ILO’s employer voice, with CEO Kim Aikman calling for stronger collaboration. Labor Officer Domingo Pau echoed that message, stressing that government, businesses, and workers must work together to shape Belize’s labor landscape.

 

Domingo Pau, Labor Officer

“This a labor education session that we have been doing countrywide. Basically, we are here to educate them in terms of how to qualify for certain benefits, what are respons- what are the responsibilities of employers in treating employees and and, for example, the benefits in which we speak about. Earlier we talked about severance, we talk about annual vacation, we talk about public and bank holidays, we talk about sickness benefits, we talked about maternity benefits, and we talked about dismissal procedures. What are some of the reasons for termination? We talked about the different type of dismissal. We have summary dismissals. S- And also, what are some of the guidelines that employers can look at as stipulated in the Labor Act to carry out disciplinary action against employees. So these are basically the things that we’ll we educate both the employer and employees this morning. I think one of the thing the concern raised here in terms of severance when it comes to pension and and severance. And there were some reference made it, made with the ruling from the with BTL. And again these are things that, you know it’s a public information that persons raise the concerns. And of course, there were some precedents that have been set with that ruling. And of course the general public are made aware of those rulings. So I think that is one of the… Severance is basically it’s more of a package or a benefit that, that workers tend to look at the end of their employment relationship, whether, whether they retire or whether they’re being terminated by the employer because knowing that they have rendered years of services to their employer.”

 

The BCCI says real progress depends on teamwork, government, employers, and workers pulling in the same direction. It plans to keep hosting these sessions to promote fairness and drive economic growth in Belize.

 

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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